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	life_n	time_n	18,635	5	3.9362	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43687	The last speech, of that pious and [lear]ned divine Mr. John Hicks who was executed at Glassenbury, Octob. 1685.	Hickes, John, 1633-1685.	1685 (1685)	Wing H1880; ESTC R216814	9,258	11

and fully cleansed from them there where at one vieuw far more shall be known of them then by all the wrangling debats and eager disputes or by reading all polemical bookes concerning them here I greately deplore and bewaile the greedy appetite and unsatiable thirst of some professing Protestants after the bloud of their Bretheren and the high pleasures they take in the effusion thereof but what will not men do when they are judicially blinded or their secular wordly interest so insensibly insinuates and windes it self into their Religion is so twisted and incorporated wiith animates and acts it is the life and soul the vital form and power of it and it is made wholy subservient and subordinate there unto I blesse God for all my sufferings and particularly for this last for the benefits and fruits of them by Gods sanctifing them to me hath been very great for thereby I have been made more effectually convinced of the vanity of this world and of my own sinfullness by nature and by practice and to see that to be sin which I never saw before to be more throwly humbled for what I knew to be sin not onely of commission but of omission also thereby I have also been brought to a more inward sense and feeling the absolute necessity of the righteousness of Christ to justifie me and he hath been made much more dear and pretious to my soul then ever he was before hereby my soul hath been refined from the drosse of sensuality and wrought into a more heavenly frame raised up to a higher pitch of spirituality and made more to aspire towards invisible immortal things thereby I am made more meek and humble and to judge more charitably of others that differ from me in opinion and judgement So that though by Gods most righteous judgments I have been apprehended most justly deservedly undergoe these sufferings for my sins yet I hope they have wrought for me a far more exceding eternal weight of glory fitting preparing me making me a better qualified person subject and far more meet to be partaker of the same Through the grace and strength of God I will not purchase my life by the death and bloud of my Protestant Bretheren but will chuse rather to dye then to be a betrayer of them The imperious and violent assault of this temptation I dreaded more then death it self blessed be God therefore that I was not exposed unto und conquered by it as some have sadly been I having such full bodily vigour and strenght and being in such perfect health that I know no quality notwithstanding my age predominant in me it hath made it much more difficalt to dye then if I had been clogged and cumbered with infirmity and made to bow and stoope under habitual prevailing diseases and distempers gradually worn out there with which many times makes men weary of life and to chuse death before it and this in conjunction with many things which I forbear to mention highly gratfull and pleasing unto sense which I must leave for ever strengthens heightens the difficulty and begets a greater regret and reluctancy in my will to have the earthly tabernacle of my body dissolved and my soul dislodged and quit the same But now when the black and glumy shades of death do overspread me I can say to the praise and glory of Gods most free and powerfull grace that faith in some measure changing the difficulties into a facility and easines of dying hath very much subdued the reluctance of my will against it for it makes future things present invisible things visible doth realize and substantiate the same unto me And as by it I penetrate and pase into eternity and behold immersible and immortal things so hereby blessed be God I have obtained a greater victory over sense the world is more crucified unto me and I unto it and al the most pleasant delightful things and comforts therein All finite fading creature comforts are become minute small despicable and contemptible to me in comparaison hereof being infinitely contained and comprehended therein shall my soull clasp and cling about these perishing things shall it cling and be glued to them shall it be confined and captivated unto what is kept within the narrow bounds of time and the lower world shall it earnestly desire and thirst after muddy stremes yea rivers of flesh pleasing good when by an eye of faith I can look into the in lesicient inexhaustable pure fountaine immense immeasurable Ocean of supream divine goodness hoping to drink there of To swim and bath my self for ever therein when I consider how long my ears have been bound up to hear innumerable and horrid Oathts curses blasphemies and my eyes to see the prophanation of so many days of God when I behold such an overflowing of floud of most prodigious impiety such an inundation of monstrous iniquity and so much of hell upon earth and that there is such a decay of holyzeal true piety and Christian Religion among the Professors of it it hath a powerfull influence on my soul to reconcile it more unto death and make me affectually and from choise to leave this visible World to dwell and take up my abode in that which is un seen and future for there shall be nothing but perfect purity and holiness a sinless state a serving of God with all unweariedness and perfection with highest complacency delight that mortal souls are capable of There is perfect peace and concord there are innumerable company of Angels the spirits of just men made perfect all fastned together with indissolvable interruptible chaines of most sweet and pure love and all continually wrapt up in and transported to the highest admiration of Gods love his infinite and comprehensible excellencys and perfections singing Hallelujah to him without ceasing and Triumphing in his praises for ever and ever The consideration also that I know so little of the sublime and profound divine misteries of the most glorious mistery of Salvation by Jesus Christ and that I am so uncapable of to fathome the depth of the providence of God whose ways are in the sea and his paths in the deep waters and whose foot steps are unknown and particularly of the late most stupendious and amazing one And that I am so ignorant of the nature of Angels and Spirits with their offices operations of the high glorious excellency appropriate and peculiar to that order that I am so little acquainted with the nature of my own soul as at present dwelling with and united to my body and as disunited and separated from it how with out corporel organs it shall vivaciously vigourously performes all its proper functions and offices more strongly indefatigably serve the Lord more fervently and abundantly delight in him every way attain the suprerm end of its creation and being This makes me much more willing to dye that I

now I see no cause to repent of or to recede and depart from it not questioning but God will own it at the last day of judgment If no more had been required after the late Kings restauration to qualifie Ministers for publique preaching then was after the first Reformation to the time of Charles the First probably I might have satisfied my self there with and not have scrupled conformity thereto But the terms and conditions thereof by a Parliamentary Law in 1662 being made not onely new but so strict and severe I could never yet have satisfaction in my own conscience after all endeavouts used for a complyance therewith and submission thereunto To say nothing of the Covenant which I never tooke the renouncing of my ordination and giving unfeingend assent and consent have been always to difficult and hard for me to come up to And I do very well remember about 14 years ago entring into a discours with Mr. Patrick Sheriden then an Irish Dean and who was my contemporary in Dublin Colledge concerning conformity which he much endeavoured to perswade me to I urged the severity of the fore mentioned conditions against it and after some debates and reasonings I told him I did believe they were contrived designedly and on purpose to keep us out of the Church and to prevent our publick Ministry to which he ingeniously replyed he judged it was for said he a Bishop in Ireland whose name I have forgott told and the very same But though I could not wade through and conquer those difficulties yet I censure not those that have done it and I believe after all the hottest disputes the most vehement debates and violent contests betwixt conformists and conconformists here there are of both that will be glorified in heaven hereafter According to that 19 Article of the Church of England a visible Church is a congregation of faithfull men in the which the pure Word of God is preached the Sacraments duely administred according to Christs ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same so with such Churches I have held the most intimate communion and which such were I to live could hold it as occasion should require I would not therefore be so incorporated with any such Church as to exclude me from and render me uncapable of holding communion with other Churches I was never strictly bound up to any forme of Ecclesiastical Government that under which pure and undefiled Religion doth flowrish that which contenances and cherisheth reall practical holiness and advanceth the Kingdom of God in the World I can approve of submit to and peaeably live under were I to live I do approve of the ancient and present forme of civil Government English Monarchy I am fully satisfied with and I doe also declare that it is not warrantable for subjects to take up Arms and resist their Lawfull and rightfull Soveraign Princes and therefore had I not been induced by several things I have read and heard to belive the late Duke of Monmouth was the legitimate Son of his Father Charles the Second I had never gone into his Army judging without this I could not be free the guilt of rebellion which I always resolved to keep my self clear from and though his Father denyed he was married to his Mother I thought it might be answered with this that Kings and Princes for State reasons the depth whereof can not be fathomed by their subjects may affirme or denye things which without them they would not do and make even their naturall affections to truckle and stoope thereto I exhort all to abhor treasonable plots and practices to have all rebellion in the highest detestation to make the plain text of Sacred writ their rule to walk by in honouring obeying and living in subjection to rightfull Kings and not suddenly to receive nor to be suddenly imprest with evil reports and defamatious of them also not rashly to be the Spreaders and Propagaters of the same I desire God to forgive all my enemies and to give me a heart to forgive them which are many some mighty and all most malitious particularly Barret of Fovent who betrayed me and proved so treatherous to James Dun his old and intimate Friend I dye grievously afflicted that I should prove the occasion of the great sufferings of so many persons families but this hath fallen under the just and wise ordering of the divine providence as Davids going to Abimelech for some releif did when it proved the occasion of his death and all the Priests with the destruction of men women and Children in the Citie But who shall say unto God what dost thou The care of my most dear wife and many dear children I cast upon God who I hope will be better then the best of Husbands unto her and better then the best of parents unto them God knows how just and legall a right my wife hath unto her estate to him therefore I commit her to defend her from the violence and oppression of many particularly of a most inhumane and unnatural Brother but no wonder if he will lay violent hands upon his Sisters Estate that layd them so often on his own Father I dye a deeply humbled self judging self condemning sinner loathing and abhorring my many and great iniquities and my self for them earnestly desiring full redemption from the bondage of corruption under which I have groaned many years longing for a perfect conformity to the most glorious holy God the onely infinitely pure being thirsting for a perfect effusion of his image through all the powers and faculties of my soul panting after perfect spiritual light life and liberty and a consummated love to my dearest Jesus the all comprehending good and to be satisfied with his love for ever a vigorous and a vehement zeal for the Protestant Religion which a beleif of the Dukes legitimacy hath involved me in that for which I am condemned And tho it hath brought me to this ignominious death yet blessed be God that by sincere repentance and true faith in the bloud of Jesus there is a passage from it to a glorious eternal life and from those bitter sorrows to the fullness of sweetest joy that is in his presence and from those sharp bodily paines to those most pure pleasures that are at his Right hand for ever more Blessed be God that such a death as this cannot prevent and hinder Christs changing my vile body and fashoning it according to his most glorious body at the general resurrection day I am now going into that world where many darke things shall be made perfectly manifest and clear and many doubtfull things shall be resolved with plenary satisfaction given concerning them all disputes and mistakes concerning treason and schisme shall there be at an end cease for ever Many things that are innocent lawfull laudable often have foul markes and black characters stampt and fixt upon them here but shall be perfectly purified