Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	die_v	good_a	life_n	16,696	5	4.8534	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42551	The love-sick spouse, or, The substance of four sermons preached on Canticles 2.5. by William Gearing ...	Gearing, William.	1665 (1665)	Wing G436; ESTC R42046	36,957	51

modest in Spiritual things and our prayers do come short of the Returns of them Solomon only begs wisdome of God and the Lord not only gives him what he asketh but together with it gives him riches and honour and glory He gives us more then we can ask or think Ephes 3.20 Try whether ye have these ardent desires after Christ Vse 1 so as you cannot be content with a little of him I shall shew you who they are that go without these Apples and Flaggons these living cordials and yet do desire after Christ There are six kinds of successless desires after Christ 1. Occasional desires of Christ Some have but fits or pangs of desires occasioned by some pang of fear or terrour as by some loss cross sickness or fear of death when the fire of Hell flasheth in a mans face then he will have a flash of desires when he is under the fear of death then Oh that I had Christ as Esau longed for pottage and then said of his birth-right I am at the point to die and what good will this Birth-right do me Such longings will some men have after Christ I am at the point of death what good will creature-comforts do me O give me of these living cordials Stay me with spiritual Flaggons comfort me with these Apples When God raiseth up a Storm in the polluted consciences of sinners this may put them into a fit of devotion as it did the Mariners in Jonah but these desires usually vanish away with the occasion but let the Sea be calmed and the waves still you shall see the prophane Mariner fall to his prophaness again 2. Disproportionable desires are successless desires when Christ is not desired in quantum est appetibilis some part of Christ is desired only Christ justifying but not Christ sanctifying Christ taking away the guilt of sin but not Christ dividing and divorcing the lust from the soul they would have these flaggons to quench their thirst to refresh them when they are scorcht with the fears of hell but care not to be washed in the waters of life and holiness Men desire Christ to save them but will not have him to reign over them like those seven women Isa 4.1 that shall take hold of one man saying We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparrel only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach So these men will take hold of Christ yet they say We will take our own courses we will live as we list only let us be called by thy Name and take away our reproach from us Thus men do in their desires divide Christ 3. Selfish or carnal desires of Christ are wi hout success when men desire not Christ for Christs sake but for some temporal or carnal advantage to themselves as the Jews did follow Christ up and down by Sea and Land in City and desert Multitudes would follow him but their following him but felfish Christ therefore upbraids them for it You seek me for the loaves so the Scribe Matth. 8. was very desirous to be one of Christs followers Master I will follow thee wheresoever thou goest but he thought to get some great preferment by him but when Christ tells him that the Foxes have holes and the Birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath not whereon to lay his head It is thought by all Interterpreters that this forward man forsook Christ he saw more danger of parting with his estate for Christ and his outward comforts by following him then he had hopes of preferment by him therefore he will be none of his followers It was an old complaint Multi quaerunt Jesum sed non propter Jesum many seek after Jesus but not for Jesus sake if they can be gainers by him they will have him but are unwilling to be sufferers and losers for Jesus sake 4 Mutable desires are successless desires One of the Popes when he was a Monk would often say Panis aquaest vita beata But when he was Pope he said Aqua panis est vita canis the desires of many men change as their estate and condition changeth Ebbing desires after Christ when prosperity is in the flow and flowing desires when prosperity is in the ebb in a gloomy day of War Christ is desired but not regarded in a time of peace in a time of sickness then Christ is longed for then the sick man will pray and the Minister must pray Christ into his heart but let God renue his health his desires die and languish in him Moses and Aaron must go and seek the Lord for Pharaoh when any plague was upon him and his land but let God take it away then Moses must see his face no more it is death so to do When men are in Adversity then none but Christ but let their conditions be changed there will be a change of their desires 4. Preposterous desires of Christ are successless desires when Christ is not desired chiefly and in the first place First These things then the Kingdome of Heaven first the World then Christ All the things of the world are nothing in comparison of Christ Why then do we set our eyes upon that which is not Prov. 23.5 These things are not the true blessedness in them true happiness doth not consist They are not bread they cannot satisfie us They are not necessary there is but one thing necessary that is Christ yet this is the course of world most mens desires are after the things of this life and they never turn the stream and bent of their affections till they are ready to drop into the grave we may say of late desires as we do of late repentance they are seldome true and by consequent seldom obtain Christ Many men are of the mind of a certain Duke of Russia who being asked whether he had seen the Blazing Star in the air answered no I have so much to do faith he here upon earth that I have no time to look up to heaven 6. Unactive and lazy desires after Christ are without success the Schoolmen term these desires velleitates not volitiones which cannot be better Englished then by this fain I would but loath I am fain I would have Christ but loath I am to take pains for him or to do or suffer or part with any thing for him Men of lazy desires are like the dry and chapt earth it gapes and yawns for rain but moveth not so many men yawn for Christ but if God will not drop him into their mouths they will not stir one foot for him a slothful man desireth and hath not He desireth Christ and mercy but hath them not Prov. 21.25 The desire of the slothfull killeth him he resteth in his desires and in his wishes for Christ thinking he doth well if he desire Christ though he labour not at all for him CHAP. IX 6. Properties of true desires after Christ NOw that ye may

loved for his own sake so all other things for his sake and therefore in an inferiour and secondary place Christ must be loved first of all and most of all first in time and first in place many begin to look toward Christ and heaven when they can look no way else they serve sin the Devil the world first and themselves also before God reserving only the surrows and wrinckles of their old age for God but true Love honoureth Christ with its first fruits it gives God as I may so speak the Maiden-head of its love it s serves him first and none else before him And as first in time so first in place also it lets God have the first and best place it lets him have the highest and chiefest room in the heart it gives the priority to none else sets none before him none equal with him Amor meus Deus meus That which I make my love I make my God therefore covetous men are called Idolaters they make a God of their money though not because they offer sacrifices to it yet because their hearts and affections are set upon it the world hath more from them then God hath but a man that loveth Christ reserveth the first and the fattest for Gods use And as such a one loveth Christ first of all so likewise most of all as primarily so totally he divides not his love betwixt Christ and others Pharaob would have had the Israelites to have left their Cattle behind them when they desired leave of him to go and sacrifice in the Wilderness but what saith Moses non remanebit ungula there shall not an hoof be left behind so when Satan would perswade a lover of Christ not to give all to God but to leave something behind for him and his service he answereth him no there shall not an hoof stay behind he that hath given us all shall command and have all One of these two that entered into the land of Canaan was Caleb Philo Iud. and Philo the Jew etymologyzing his name saith it was quasi Col-leb which in the Hebrew signifies all heart thereby teaching us that Christ must have all our heart all must be given to him if we will enter into the heavenly Canaan 6. This Love is such as being placed upon its object the Lord Jesus it will not be willing to part with him upon any terms What we eagerly desire to have we fear to lose Quod vehementer cupis habere times perdere he that loveth money oh how loth is he to part with it You shall as soon wring water out of a stone as money out of his purse it was a sign Esau loved not his birth-right very dearly because he parted with it so easily but the man in the Gospel loved his sheep well and the woman loved her groat well that took such pains as they did to seek them out again when they had lost them Certainly Christ is worth keeping if you have him worth a seeking if you have lost him they that love him as they should will rather do any thing then part with him to others the matter is not great whether they part with Christ or keep him they are indifferent and the services they do him they do rather out of fashion than out of love he that serves a master whom he loves not his service is an hard task to him but they that love him heartily serve him cheerfully they will suffer no occasions to part them from him or if at any time they do chance to lose him they will never leave till they have recovered and found him A man who loseth his friend loseth one half of himself he is at once both alive and dead and death accords not with life save only to make him more miserable The absence of Christ is bitter to him to whom his presence is sweet See how restless the Spouse was Cant. 3. when she sought him whom her soul loved when she sought him and found him not she could never be at rest till she had got where he was and when once she had him she held him she would not let him go then till she had brought him home to her Mothers House to the chamber of her that conceived her A Love-sick soul desireth nothing more then the presence of Christ here and in Heaven here in the use of his Ordinances Word and Sacraments and they that do indeed love Christ do love to meet him in these in his Word that they may confer with him in his Sacraments that they may eat and drink with him Latatur ancilla ad vocem Petri laetatur anima ad voeem Christi The Damsel rejoyced at the voice of Peter and the soul rejoyceth that the voice of Christ but these are but his back parts the shadow of his presence hereafter then we shall have his presence in glory and this also all that love him do long for I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is best of all saith holy Paul Phil. 1.23 and saith he the Crown of life shall be given to all that love the appearing of Christ as if none could love him that did not love his appearing CHAP. XIII THe second Use is for Exhortation Vse 2 Labour you to be vehement in your love to Christ labour every day for more communion with him Love is the liquefaction and melting of the soul toward her beloved here no excess is or can be vitious the object will warrant the greatest excess of love it is a sin in other things to be violent but not to be violent for the Kingdom of God it is a sin to be sick of love for a poor skin-deep beauty or for any worldly thing whatsoever but not for Christ True it is there may be some accidental errors about the greatness of a Christians affections to Christ when our hearts are so intent upon him as that we are impatient when he delayes the manifestation of himself to us but let me tell you if there be any errors in your love to Christ he will pardon them therefore let your affections be ardent and burning toward Christ Reason teacheth us that he is the Abysle of all perfections and the Center of all love so as a man need not fear committing any excess in loving him with all his might Consider the greatness of Christs love to us When the Lord Jesus did first look upon sinners how black did he see them to be but Christs banner over his people is love he loved us not according to what we were but according to what we should be by grace He hath loved us and washed our sins in his blood Rev. 1.5 What was there in man that could atract Christs love to him there was neither descent nor beauty nor parts nor riches not innocence and goodness Now that the love of Christ might be excessive he makes it to out run the wickedness and sinfulness that is in man