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
A51879	The rich man's bounty, the true measure of his wisdom a sermon preached before the Lord Mayor, and Court of Aldermen, and citizens of London, at St. Brides Church, Easter-Wednesday, March 27, 1695 / by John Mapletoft ...	Mapletoft, John, 1631-1721.	1695 (1695)	Wing M563; ESTC R6441	19,146	36

can not long enjoy what is the only Good they care to have But now he who understands the true nature of these things and is too discerning to be brought by such thin appearances of Happiness into the common Paradise of Fools looks upon a mighty Revenue rather as a great Burthen and Incumbrance a thoughtful careful Province and a Busy Steward-ship And all that can make it I say not desirable or valuable but tolerable to such a man is the hopes he hath by his wise management of his ten Tallents to bring Honour to his Great Master and obtain the Reward promised to the good and faithful Servant His being a Large Dispencer and Instrument of the Divine Bounty to the Family of God is both the joy and support of his Spirit and the only true advantage of his having more then he needs or would otherwise have the trouble of if it were to be mispent in the too generally received methods of the World Second The Folly of those who are more intent upon laying up Treasures on Earth than in Heaven or upon having a great Estate than making a due and good use of what they have is seen in this that they do not consider enough nor understand what the best and true use of Wealth is and how it may be most improved It were easie for God so to order things here below that no Man should need to be Poor but the Poor and Rich have from this variety and difference of their outward circumstances opportunity of exercising several Graces and Virtues which could not otherwise subsist and have place amongst Men. The Pious and Industrious Poor have hereby occasion to exercise their Patience and Submission to the Will of God and their dependence on and trust in him for a supply to their wants And the Rich have manifold invitations and opportunities to shew the sincerity of their love to God and to their Brethren by their Liberality as also to express their thankfulness to God for these outward Blessings and that he has put them into that more happy station of being Givers rather than Receivers and hereby to own that as all they have is from God so it ought to be managed with regard to his will and pleasure and for his greater Glory Beneficence also gives us a peculiar Title to the Favour and Blessing and Protection of God here in this Life nay even to more Wealth if God sees it to be best for us St. Hierom affirms that he did not remember to have read that any Person ever had died an ill Death who had been a great Alms-giver in his Life time And we read Prov. 11.24 25. There is that scattereth and yet increaseth and there is that withholdeth more than is meet but it tendeth to Poverty The Liberal Soul shall be made fat and he that watereth shall be watered also himself But as a large diffusive Charity and imparting to others in a good proportion to what Abundance God hath blessed us with is the proper use of a great Income so is it the best improvement we can possibly make of it this is here styled Being Rich towards God and by our Lord Laying up for our selves Treasure in Heaven Mat. 6.20 or having Treasure in Heaven 'T is putting so much stock into the Hands of God to be there Secured and Improv'd for us and ours upon the best assurance even his own Word of having so much of it repaid to us again or to ours in this World as God knows to be best for us or them Prov. 19.17 He that hath pity upon the Poor lendeth unto the Lord and that which he hath given will he repay him again But above all this is the certain and perhaps the only way for Rich Men both to secure to themselves a Crown of Righteousness thro' the Mercy of God in Christ and to increase the Weight and Glory of that Crown in Gods Kingdom Our Blessed Lord promises a Reward to him who shall give a Cup of cold Water only to any of his in the Name of a Disciple i. e. because they belong to him Mat. 10.24 And in that description of the Day of Judgment Mat. 25. he is pleased to assign no other cause of his putting the Blessed of his Father into possession of that Kingdom prepared for them from the Foundation of the World but only their having Fed and Cloathed him when he Hungry and Naked and taken him in when he was a Stranger and visited him when he was Sick and in Prison i. e. their having relieved and taken care of his Brethren in their Needs and Distresses which he therefore interprets as if done to himself and accordingly rewards with everlasting Happiness Thirdly Very Rich men if they are not given to Charity and that in a good proportion to their Superfluous Riches are very foolish because by their failing in this duty they neglect and deprive themselves of the most efficacious if not the only sure remedy against the danger and mischief of worldly prosperity And that great difficulty our Saviour has told us there is for them to enter into the Kingdom of God 'T is either the too great love and over value men have for Riches their setting their heart upon them placing their confidence in them or their abuse of them to the support and gratification of their Ambition and Pride or their Sensuality and their forgetfulness of God which make it harder for a Rich Man as Christ positively affirms Mat. 19.24 To enter into the Kingdom of God than it is for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle And the only way that God takes as far as we can know to work this Miracle for those Rich Men who do enter into his Kingdom or become true sincere Christians is by infusing this Grace of Charity into their Souls whereby he makes them Willing and Desirous to part with so much of their Wealth to the Poor that they may have good Store of Treasure laid up for them in Heaven and by this means their hearts are loosed and dis-entangled from these perishing things and centred upon God as their last end and Supream Felicity It was the want of this Spiritual Wisdom and disposition to beneficence which made that young man who gave occasion to that hard and amazing saying forsake Christ He went away with a sorrow proportionable to the greatness of his wealth He was very sorrowful Luk. 18.23 For he was very Rich. And he fondly chose rather to part with all hopes of that Eternal Life he had been so earnestly enquiring after than with the great possessions he was master of Certainly did Rich Men consider well the horrible danger they are in of being lost forever upon account of their Riches if they will believe our LORD and MASTER they would never have St. Paul's charge out of their mind which he enjoyns Timothy to give them 1 Tim. 6.17 18. They would neither be high-minded insolent or despisers

consideration for other mens needs no end no God but himself when he is surpriz'd by death and then Take heed and beware of such Covetousness and irregular self-love as is here Exemplify'd Of hoarding up for your selves what God entrusted you with for the support and comfort of his Children So is he i. e. such a short-sighted unthinking fool as this here in the Parable So unmindful of God his great Master and Benefactor So inhuman and regardless of his poor BRETHREN who perish for want of those provisions which his barns could not hold and might have saved him the labour of building new ones and So miserably disappointed at the last and So lost and So undone for ever is that wretched man who spends all his time and care and strength in increasing or preserving his wealth or abuses it to Luxury or to pride and vanity without taking care To be Rich towards God or to lay out a good proportion of his abundance in those works of mercy which God doth require of him in this and will reward him for in the next life So much for the Explication and Meaning of the Words Secondly The general Doctrine deducible from this Parable as the main drift and design of it seems to be this That as it is too much the Custom so it is both the mighty folly and error the disappointment and the ruin of too many Rich men that they are more intent upon adding to their heap and keeping it together or in lavishing out their store unduly upon themselves or on too carefully laying it up for their posterity than upon managing their great affluence so as may turn to their best account in the next life and may most comply with that end for which this Talent was put into their hands Or that he is extreamly foolish who sets his heart more upon leaving a great Estate at his death than upon doing a great deal of good with it in his life time And on the other side the rich man's diligent study and practise of Beneficence and Charity is the true measure of his Wisdom as well as the proper duty of his place and station Now the truth of this Doctrin will manifestly appear from these four following considerations They are extreamly foolish and like to him her mentioned who Lay up Treasure for themselves and are not Rich towards God 1. Because all those who thirst after wealth immoderately or use great portions of it in the service of any vice mistake the nature and end of Riches 2. Because they understand not the true use and mighty advantage which may be made of them when they are employ'd so as they ought to be 3. Because by neglecting or coming short in their works of mercy they deprive themselves of the chief or only Remedy against the certain danger and usual mischief of Worldly prosperity and so make it hard for themselves to be saved 4. Because as their Riches make it hard so their ill or no use of them and total want of Charity make it impossible for them to be saved if they die in that state 1. They who are wholly taken up with the care and thoughts of mony and over joy'd with great posessions are very unwise because they are much mistaken in the nature and value power and end of that which they make their Capital their chief Affair For they falsely suppose that a great deal of wealth will furnish all that is needful to make them truly Happy But now the contrary Assertion to this too Fatal Error is laid down by our Blessed Lord as the very reason why we ought to take heed and beware of Covetousness or a desire of having too much all we can get any way for saith he A Mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth i. e. No Mans life can be either prolonged one moment or made more truly happy by such a surplusage of riches as neither the necessities nor true Conveniences of life demand All happiness pretended to beyond this Competency either in the bare possessing or in Luxuriously and vainly expending much wealth is but a diseased fancy and illusion of brain-sick men And 't is well known that all such false Appetites and Ill-grounded desires are as unsatiable as they are unnatural and unreasonable Neither the wealthiest Prince that ever was nor the greatest Conqueror had every Gold or Empire enough to make him easy and contented as long as there was still any more in the world And no man can be happy who is not pleased with his present condition But besides this Riches can neither make a man Wise nor Good which is the proper felicity of rational intelligent beings They rise no higher than to provide for and gratify the body which is the husk and shell only or the prison as some call it of that immortal spirit which distinguishes us from the brute Beasts and so must raise us to another kind and pitch of Happiness than what we can have in Common with them And this made Socrates suspend his judgment concerning the happiness of the great King or Persian Monarch till he was better inform'd how much Wisdom and Vertue he had And for the same reason he refused to say that another newly made a mighty rich man was happy until he saw what use he would make of his Estate For by these he rightly measured the felicity of every man and affirm'd that all other things which mis-judging vulgar minds dote on Riches and Honours and Kingdoms c. had no great matter in them were of no Consequence at all in order to make men happy And a very Knowing Man of our Nation Lord Verulam assures us as well from his own as from the Universal experience of Mankind That Great Persons must borrow other Mens opinions to think themselves Happy For if they judge by what they feel only they cannot find any such thing Thus are these fond Admirers of Riches altogether ignorant of the true Nature and Power or indeed Impotency Inability of Wealth to procure and to establish any happiness to Man and consequently they are miserably fool d and abus'd in a False expectation of what it can never perform Since no Solid Rational satisfaction of the mind of Man ever was or can be ever found either in those low despicable Pleasures of Sense in which the Bruits or rival or perhaps excel Man or in all the Pageantry of Secular Greatness the empty Smoke Dust and Noise of Worldly Pomps and Vanities to which only abundance always can and commonly doth exalt and then abuse and puss up those weak untaught minds who know no better things Nor do these Men much reflect upon the fleeting fading Nature of these Transitory things the great uncertainty there is of their possessing them one Day Thou Fool may God say to every one of them this night thy Soul shall be required of thee Nor upon the as great certainty that they