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	year_n	7,417	5	4.9417	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53903	Enoch's translation, in a sermon preached at the funerals of the Right Honourable Thomas Earl of Elgin, Baron of Whorlton, &c. In the parish-church of Malden in Bedford-shire, Decemb. 31. 1663. By Rich. Pearson D.D.	Pearson, Richard, Chaplain to the Earl of Elgin.	1664 (1664)	Wing P1012; ESTC R216919	15,936	38

but God The temporizing Hypocrite does all to be seen of men so speaks as hunting after the Favour and Applause and Approbation of men with those sawning Prophets mentioned in Isa 30. 10. which speak smooth things and prophesie deceits The Prophets prophesie falsly and what 's the reason the people love to have it so Jer. 5. 31. He that would approve himself a faithful Servant of God must not look asquint upon the Applause of men S. Paul concludes for himself and it may be a Rule for us Gal. 1. 10. If I should yet please men I were not the servant of Christ The third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we must not please our selves if we must not please men much less Satan who is God's adversary Whatsoever pleaseth him is displeasing to God Then we please him when we listen to his suggestions when we commit sin and delight to continue in it As the good Angels rejoyce at our Conversion so our Sin and Confusion is the pleasure and pastime of Satan If we make it our End and our Rule as we ought to doe to please God all these ways are to be abandoned Here then was the high commendation of Enoch's Piety he so lived and so behaved himself in the time of his pilgrimage that by the testimony of God himself he pleased God It was a high Character especially from the mouth of God and that recorded by the finger of the Spirit of God in the Book of God in perpetuam rei memoriam What an honour was it to Apelles to be enrolled among the Nobles of the New Testament with this singular Elogium or Title of honour Apelles approved in Christ What an honour to Moses in the Old Testament to be called Ro. 16. 10. the Servant of God to Abraham to be styled the Friend of God to David to be called A man after God's own heart All these concur in this honourable Elogium given to the Patriarch Enoch in this Scripture He had this testimony that he pleased God And thus much shall suffice for the first part of the Text His pious Conversation whilst he was in the world Being such an one it was not fit that he should make too long a stay in this world which was not worthy of him He was all this while a Candidate for Heaven and having received God's approbation thither God removes him and by a special privilege he takes the Degree of a glorified Saint as it were per saltum leaping over the threshold of Death This we have more particularly described unto us in the Second part of the Text which tells us of his honourable Removal out of the world in these words He was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him Concerning this Translation of Enoch many Questions have been started but by the help of this Scripture we may be able to resolve the most of them One is Whether Enoch was so translated that as a person privileged from the law of Mortality he died not The Scruple is grounded upon two several phrases which are used by Moses in the story of Enoch Gen. 5. 24. First in that it is said God took him Now this phrase of taking away is used in Scripture to set forth the blessed Departure of the Saints out of this world by the ordinary way of Dissolution Thus Isa 57. 1. Merciful men are taken away that is they die and Job 32. 22. my Maker would soon take me away that is he would take away my Life he would kill me Again it is said in the same Scripture that Enoch was not and this also is a phrase by which the Scripture sometimes points out the state of Death So Gen. 42. 36. Joseph is not and Simeon is not that is they are both dead for so Jacob at that time supposed them to be But this Question is clearly resolved by S. Paul in this Scripture where he tells us plainly Enoch was translated that he should not see death That he should not see death that is that he should not die It is like that other phrase Luk. 9. 27. There be some here that shall not taste of death To see death and to taste of death are phrases borrowed from two distinct Senses but have both the same signification that is saith S. Augustin Mortem non experietur he shall have no experience of death Enoch was so far exempted from the law of Death that he did not so much as Taste it nè primoribus quidem labiis so far privileged that he did not so much as See it nè primoribus quidem oculis So his Taking away was not a Taking away of Dissolution which implies Mortality but a Taking away of Translation which prevents Death Therefore we may observe that in Gen. 5. where the Lives of the Patriarchs are recorded of all the rest who are mentioned both before and after Enoch it runs thus Seth lived so many years and he died Methuselah so many years and he died but of Enoch otherwise he lived so many years and not said He died but to shew that he was a privileged person Moses gives him a singular and privilegiate expression God took him Again whereas it is there further express'd He was not if we take the phrase in its full rigour it signifies an absolute Nullity or Annihilation but here it is so far from intending an Annihilation that it does not betoken so much as an ordinary Extinction by Death It is true that as the Latines were wont to express Death by the word Fuit so the Hebrews by a Non fuit but in this place it does not signifie so much Therefore S. Paul in this Text mollifies the phrase by a word of supply Non fuit He was not that is Non fuit inventus He was not Found He was not any more in a visible communion with men He was secretly translated by God as Moses secretly buried by God It was not known what was become of him till God revealed it We see other men when they go out of the world Even Elias himself was seen by Elisha when he ascended But none of the Patriarchs saw Enoch go and being gone he was not to be found The sons of the Prophets might search and seek for him as they did for Elias but not meet with him Again as it was a Secret so a Total Translation both in Soul and Body Other Saints though their Souls be carried up on the wings of Angels as Lazarus was yet their Bodies are to be found they remain behind and are laid asleep in their graves as S. Peter speaks of the Patriarch David Act. 2. 29. He is both dead and buried and his sepulchre is with us unto this day Enoch was not to be found either way in him there was no Separation of Soul and Body by death but a total Translation of both That for the first Question Secondly Some will grant that Enoch died not

he was not then Mortuus but make a question whether he was not Aliquando moriturus afterwards to die namely towards the end of the World having preached Repentance to the Gentiles for so they reade that place in Ecclesiastic 44. 16. Translatus est in paradisum ut det gentibus poenitentiam Our Translation better He was translated being an example of repentance to all generations The more probable ground of this opinion is fetch'd from the common law of Mortality by which it is appointed for all men once to die Psal 89. 48. What man is he that lives and shall not see death But the Apostle in this place resolves also this Question that Enoch's privilege did not consist in a bare reprieve or a deferring of Death till some further time then it had been enough for the Apostle to have said Et non vidit mortem he did not see death but it consisted in a final preservation and exemption from it therefore it is express'd more fully he was translated ut non videret mortem that he should not that is that he should never see death And for that general law of Mortality it is not a Rule so peremptory but that it admits of some exception S. Paul tells us of those Saints who shall be found alive at Christ's coming to Judgment 1 Cor. 15. 52. We shall not all sleep that is we shall not all die but we shall be changed in a moment c. That Change is not properly Death but an equivalent or analogical Death So Enoch here though he might admit of some such momentany Death in the change of a corruptible Body into an incorruptible yet there was no Separation and therefore properly speaking he was free from Death Thirdly there 's yet a further Question concerning the Place of Enoch's Translation whither it was that God removed him Some will have it to be into a Terrestrial Paradise the very same out of which Adam was ejected a place free from all those corporal molestations and inconveniences which attend upon us in our earthly pilgrimage but withall a place which does not afford the vision of God or the happiness of a Comprehendour This Opinion is grounded upon the fore-named place of the Son of Sirach Ecclesiast 44. 16. where Enoch is said to be translated into Paradise But this will appear to be a very weak and a sandy foundation For besides that the Author is Apocryphal the Text is falsified the word Paradise being foisted into the vulgar Latin which is not in the Greek and a corrupt Gloss inferr'd upon it Into Paradise therefore into an Earthly Paradise But the Apostle in this Scripture resolves also this Question where it is said that God translated him and recorded as a great privilege Because he pleased God therefore God translated him If onely into an Earthly Paradise to be there confined it had not been a Gain but a Loss not a Prerogative but a Prejudice not a Privilege but a Punishment that whereas the Souls of the other Saints after the ending of a short Pilgrimage upon Earth are immediately carried up to those Celestial mansions where they do enjoy the vision of God the society of Saints and Angels and are for ever blessed with the Lord yet Enoch an eminent Saint who had this singular testimony from God's own mouth that he pleased God should be the onely person condemn'd to an Earthly Paradise for ages and generations and so long kept out of Heaven even almost from the beginning to the end of the world The truth is this Opinion of Enoch's Translation into an Earthly Paradise is a wild conceit without either ground of Reason or authority of Scripture and the ancient Fathers speaking of Enoch and Elias whatsoever they say of the degrees of Glory determine of both that they were taken up into the place of Glory He is there saith Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a body Epiph. haer 64. spiritualized He doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so S. Basil Seleuc. converse with Angels He was carried Bas Sel. Or. 11. Id. Orat. 40 saith the same Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all the bounds of visible nature whither can that be but into Heaven Whence Isid Pelus Isid Pelus l. 2. ep 37. calls Elias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 coelipetam Eliam one that reach'd Heaven corporally The same may be said of Enoch Of all the Saints these were the onely Royal pare who had the honour of this privilege All the other Saints at the time of their dissolution are taken up in their Souls their Bodies are not translated thither untill the general Resurrection S. Paul and S. John were taken up in spirit by vision or ex●●●sie but Enoch in person So it might have a two-fold reference 1. It was a fore-runner of the Ascension of Christ Christ had fore-runners of all the other passages of his Incarnation The Baptist was a fore-runner of his Birth John born of the barren womb Christ of the Virgin a fore-runner of his Death Isaac the onely son of his father bound upon the Altar as Christ nail'd upon the Cross a fore-runner of his Resurrection Jonas after three days brought forth out of the belly of the Whale by the power of God as Christ by his own power raised out of the bowels of the earth and a fore-runner also of his Ascension Enoch translated into Heaven as Christ himself was afterwards 2ly It was a fore-runner of our rapture at the Last day to assure us that the weight of our Bodies shall be no impediment of our Assumption into Heaven that as God gave us pledges of our Resurrection in both Testaments in the Old by such as were raised by the Prophets in the New by such as Christ himself raised so he hath not left us without remarkable pledges of our Ascension into Heaven In every state of the world there was one that was taken up Enoch before the Law Elias under the Law Christ after the Law that in all Ages the Saints might have some preambles of everlasting Life For this reason Epiphanius calls Enoch the First-begotten of the Resurrection and S. Gregory Ascensionis praenuncium the Fore-runner of our Ascension What was wrought upon him in the first Age of the world is daily wrought upon the Saints in all Ages of the world in respect of their Souls at the time of their departure they are translated and taken up into Heaven and at the Last day it shall be wrought upon the Bodies of all the Saints when they shall be caught up into the clouds and meet the Lord in the air and so shall ever be with the Lord. I have done with the Second Part of the Text His honourable Removal out of the world The Third and last is The mutual Correspondence between the two former Parts his Conversation and his Translation His holy Conversation that was a comfortable preparative of his happy Translation By faith Enoch was translated in

the beginning of the verse and his happy Translation that was a necessary consequent of his holy and pious Conversation in the latter end of the verse God translated him because before his translation he pleased God From hence will arise these two Propositions whereof the one will serve to guide and direct the other to comfort and establish us in our way to Heaven The first is this That a holy Conversation is a necessary preparative to a happy Translation There 's no passing into that Temple of Honour but by this of Vertue We must enter through the Gates into the City Rev. 22. 14. The City is Heaven and Grace is the Gate that leads into it You have it expounded in the former part of that verse Blessed are they that doe his commandments that they may have right to the Tree of life Heaven is a holy place no unclean thing shall enter there nor whatsoever defileth nor whatsoever worketh abomination It is a Heavenly place the earthly and covetous worldling shall not enter there To such a man the door of Heaven is as the eye of a Needle and such a man is to it as a Camel if he would thred this Needle he must take away this Bunch from off his back cast away the love of worldly Riches Heaven is the habitation of Righteousness no unjust person shall enter there nor thieves nor covetous nor extortioners nor oppressors nor grinders of the face of the poor It is God's holy Hill and David tells us by what steps we must ascend unto it Psal 15. and Psal 24. by walking uprightly and working righteousness and speaking the truth by cleanness of hands and purity of heart Such an one shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his Salvation In a word would you hope for a comfortable translation at the hour of death you must learn to live the life of Faith By faith Enoch was translated learn so to order your lives as may be well-pleasing and acceptable unto God Enoch was translated because he pleased God That 's the first Proposition A holy Conversation is a necessary preparative of a happy Translation And the second is like unto it That a happy Translation is an infallible consequent of a holy and godly Conversation S. Augustine lays it down for an undeniable truth Non potest malè mori qui bene vixerit No man can die ill that lives well be it a sudden a violent a painful a bloudy death yet he is happy in it because He cannot die ill that lives well Let us make sure of this viaticum Faith working by Love and all will be well He that has often used to walk with God as Enoch did that has made it his care and conscience to please God has this Praeludium of a happy Dissolution he begins in Grace and he must needs end in Glory In a word Let us make this use of Enoch's Translation often to look up to that place whither he was taken Had Earth been Enoch's home had this World been his abiding City God would never have taken him from hence but being a pilgrim here he takes him away And however we have no hope of this privilege whilst we are in our mortal Pilgrimage to be immediately taken up in the Body as he was yet we must aspire thither in our Affections and Desires That is a thing we may reach unto and Nature it self will help us with some directions to it having given Man an erect Stature and a sublime Countenance that he may behold his Heavenly Original and often meditate on the place from whence he came that is Heaven that he may have a Heavenly Conversation sutable to the place whither he is designed to go that 's Heaven But the Scripture gives us better directions to look up thither with the Eye of Faith that will carry us further then the eye of the Body not onely to the Starry Heaven but to the Beatifical where our Hope is where our Country is where the Saints and Angels are where Christ himself is If there be any love of Christ we will be often travelling thither he is gone before if any love of the Saints they are gone before if any love of Happiness we cannot hope to find it here it is in Heaven or no where Let us lift up our hearts thither there let us fix our eyes thither let us bend our course and so order our Conversation in this world that we may be fit for a better that when the time of our Dissolution is come we may hope for a blessed Translation having walked by Faith and laboured to please God as Enoch did By Faith Enoch c. I Have done with the Text a noble Precedent of Piety drawn from the first and Golden Age of the world And now I perceive your attention revives and your expectation begins to rouze up to hear something of the present occasion by way of parallel And I cannot blame you such eminent Examples of Vertue and Piety as this Honourable Person hath left behind him are not the lot of every day especially in this last and Iron Age of the world I shall therefore endeavour in some measure to gratifie such a just and reasonable expectation And I shall doe it the more chearfully because I find my self discharg'd of one main discouragement which usually attends upon these performances the suspicion of Flattery that Pander of Vain-glory that stinking Flie which poisons the perfume of many a Funeral Commendation Here is no fear of that I am to speak of a Person so truly and highly Deserving that my arrows will be sure rather to fall short then beyond the mark Being secured of that I shall set forward I will not take upon me to trace the Descent of of this Noble Person to its first rise it were a work that would require the Antiquities of two Kingdoms It may suffice that it was both Ancient and Honourable and let me adde it was English too and so I find it on the Monument of Edward Lord Bruce in the Chappel of the Rolls Scotus ut ortu Anglis sic oriundus avis Our neighbour-Nation had the honour to give that Family an hospitable entertainment for some hundreds of years and they had the justice also after many revolutions to restore it at length with Honour and Splendour to its native and Original Soil His Ancestors with their Name came in with the Norman Conquerour their Seat was Skelton in Yorkshire and a Monument of theirs still remaining in Gisborough Abbey bears witness to great Antiquity Providence transplanted them into Scotland where they prospered and took root and spread their branches into the Royal Family And the same Providence together with the auspicious Reign of K. James brought them back into England The L. Bruce of Kinlosse Father to this Honourable Earl did not onely attend upon his Majesty to this Crown but was a happy instrument as Ambassadour to Q. Elizabeth of