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	time_n	year_n	9,015	5	4.8371	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A71231	Enter into thy closet, or A method and order for private devotion A treatise endeavouring a plain discovery of the most spiritual and edifying course of reading, meditation, and prayer; and so, of self examination, humiliation, mortification, and such most necessary Christian duties, by which we sue out the pardon of our sins from Heaven, and maintain an holy converse with God. Together with particular perswasives thereunto, and helps therein.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1666 (1666)	Wing W1495B; ESTC R217163	97,436	340

ever take heed what matters here we do I would not choose this as a place of my vainer discourse or freer hours as some do who are ever severest in company and allow themselves liberty in private or amongst their confidents whom if they can but get into such a place where neither mens eye nor ear can reach them as the closet for the main is supposed to be their company shall be vain and srolick to as high a degree almost as any mens I take it and I am greatly deceived if I mistake it for a certain argument that the serious belief of a God and of the World to come is much wanting in his heart who dare be naught idle or sinfully merry if he can but get out of mans sight and cognizance PART II. Treating of Daily Closet-Duties Chap. I. That if I am a person of leisure I ought daily twice in the day to retire into my Closet for devotions sake It followeth now to be considered of my more solemn retirement or entrance into my Closet Now that I account a solemn recourse thither when my businesse there is purely devotion And such recourse is either ordinary or more speciall My ordinary retirement into my Closet should be daily and that if my condition will conveniently admit as most mens may twice a day oftener I may as at noon seldomer I well cannot I am bound thereto upon the same grounds upon which I am bound to pray twice a day and the sum of them is that the command saith Pray continually the meaning of which we cannot but take to be 1 either pray alwaies when you may for other duties that is so much time as thou canst spare from the work of thy calling and due care of thy body and other offices of Charity and Piety spend in that duty of prayer or else 2. parallel to that of the continual burnt Offering which was called Continual because ever continued in its course twice a day Keep a continuall course of prayer morning and evening And this the practices of the Saints in Scripture which we may look upon as Exempl●fications of that forenamed command to wit the Practice of David praying Evening Morning and at Noon of Psal 55. 7. Dan. 6. Daniel as many times and none that we read of less than twice cannot but enforce upon us as the least which can be our duty in this case If any think they are excused from private prayer twice a day by their praying twice a day with the Family of which they are a part They are to understand that there is no particular strict command touching the nature of our daily devotions prescribing them to be either publick or private or both but that it is most just and equitable that God should have a liberal part of our time as well as of our estates Dr. Ham Pract. Catech. Lib. 3. sect 2. that therefore if our condition be such that besides the time which we spend in prayer with the Family which no one who would have God to bless his Family can think he may neglect we have convenient leisure from other necessary matters it cannot be better bestowed than in our Closet and upon our Soules And it will questionlesse be a piece of very sinfull vanity to trifle it away and omit what it might so well have been imployed upon According as in matter of my estate if after sufficient necessaries and conveniences provided for my self and Family there do yet remain in my hand a portion of what God hath given me I cannot but look upon it as my duty to supply therewith the necessities of those who want and as my sin for me idly to squander it away which might have fild so many hungry bellies or cloathed so many naked or ragged backs Further God having in joyned me the duty of prayer but left the particular frequency of it after the nature of other freewill offerings to my Christian discretion I ought not to be therefore the more heedless but rather because I know my sacrifice will be ever accepted how often soever brought with an honest heart out of an holy ambition of pleasing God and sending up an odour of a sweet savour unto heaven to bring it as often as I can And surely twice a day I may present even my private devotions If I be single and in my own power there is no question but I may If I be the Master or Mistris of a Family there is little question of it If I be a servant or one who works for my living there is indeed somewhat the more question for that not only I may be straightned in time but want the conveniency of privacy But yet even in this case what hinders but that being I cannot do so well as I would I may do so well as I can to wit rising one piece of an hour ordinarily sooner or lying down so much latter fall down upon my knees by my self at my beds side and privately poure out my confessions and prayers before God And what if my fellow servant be with me Why should I be ashamed to do before him what he cannot but acknowledg he also ought to do shall I not one day much more blush and be confounded at the omission of my duty before Men and Angels and God himself than here at the performance of it And which shame rather to be chosen That before God all Men Angels Devils than this before one or two That which is eternall or this which after I have once or twice despised I shall be troubled with no more Begin to do so and after the first or second time thou wilt never be ashamed of it I assure thee at least thou wilt never repent This then should be my ordinary retirement twice a day Our more special retirement ought to be upon Lords daies Holy-daies and our own private Fast-daies each of which will come hereafter to be considered In the mean time our daily retirement and devotions must be proceeded with Chap. II. Considerations to perswade to daily devotion and prayer in private ANd to the end I may be sure to keep such course as beforesaid let me sit down and seriously weigh First the concernment importance and vast moment of those things which by prayer I am to seek and may obtain above the other upon which most of my time is spent What is it of worldly goods which will not pass away at least as to me and my injoyment of it with my self I dying all dyes with me my estate my honours my friends and all such are no more comfortable to me when death once appears but haply a torment being that they are all now to be left It is therefore but to the end of my threescore years and ten if I should live so long or thereabouts that these can be good at all And of these my threescore years and ten which it is a thousand to one whether ever I reach how

many are already gone Perhaps one Moyety perhaps more So then all those things which my other time seeks are of a pitifull short and transient concernment But the graces of Gods spirit an holy heart a good conscience reconciliation with my heavenly Father these and such like are not only of concernment for my present happiness but for my eternall The richest honorablest and most worldly-happy Man if devoid of grace an enemy unto God conscious to himself of villany cannot in all his abundance here enjoy or like himself much less either account himself or be accounted an happy person For what can that Man acquiesce in whose own heart calling him a rogue laye● a fatall necessity upon him to hate and to be ever and anon ready to execrate himself Certainly there is no present possible happinesse which is comparable to that blessed calm and quiet which ariseth from the sense of a Mans one upright heart heart and discharged duty Insomuch that were there no such thing as an heaven to come I should not fear to pronounce that that man neglects those things which are of greatest conducement to his present happinesse who neglects to seek unto God to commune with his own heart to set all straight and to reclaim himself to an holy life the great means by which such peace the most reall felicity in the world can be had But suppose we such a person ready to die and it said unto Luk. xii 20. him Thou fool this night shall thy soule be taken from thee his peace being unmade with God himself unacquainted with heaven his conscience telling him that all his time hath been spent on what he must now leave and no provision made but of a treasure of wrath again the day of wrath for that etern● slate into which death is his entrance Rom. 11. 12. is he not now a most unhappy wretch Is it not to him a pa●equal to the paines of death to thi● he must leave all Hath he 〈◊〉 therefore by devoting himself to this world and scraping togeth●● such an ample portion thereof o● made himself more miserable a● that in this present life For is th● any misery here like to that ●●guish which racks such a soul up his now instant departure A●● would I then so spend my time that I might by the spending of become more miserable than a● save those who have lived as Would I so spend it as that the v●● thinking or reflecting how I spent it should then most torm● me when I have most need of co●fort to wit in my dying hour 〈◊〉 yet thus do all men spend their d● who neglect their devotions ot●●ies of daily addresse unto God But further suppose we such a person dead and we have him stript of all even his imaginary happinesse naked of every thing save his sins Of these his bones are full and they shall lye down with him in the dust Job 10. 11. His workes follow him and his wayes meet him Evident therefore it is that what he hath spent his life upon is now of no concernment or moment to him at all any otherwise than to render him for ever as miserable as he can be And is this a desirable end for a man all his dayes to be driving at to be miserable in life by reason of an evill conscience or an impossibility of liking and loving himself to be miserable in death by the advancing of that disquiet his former torment and most miserable after death by the perfection of that and all other mischiefs Whereas if some of those dayes which the world employed been taken up in seeking unto God how might that portion have sanctified all the rest have led him to a right improvement of what he got and that improvement of all been an unspeakable pleasure and content to him here and hereafter have wrought him an eternity of blessedness Not to mention that unspeakable satisfaction which the hearty performance of such devotions through the bloud of Christ would have filled him with which we may hereafter consider Whoso therefore truly loves himself will love his Closet and his Prayers Secondly Let me weigh the Reasonablenesse hereof that God should have a considerable part of my Time who hath given me so much for my self and the unreasonablenesse of the contrary Let me deal ingeniously may not God well expect more of my time than what is by any law set apart or consecrate to this worship And it being the genuine Evangelicall sense of the fourth commandement Keep all thy life an holy rest from doing thy own workes delighting thy self and acquiescing ever in the Lord will it not in a good measure hold thus Rest as much as thou canst to thy devotions spend Isai 58. 13 14. as many houres as thou canst with God Or suppose that this law would not in equity bind me hereunto which yet it seems to do is it not reasonable that there should be free will offerings of our time as well as of our estates And will there be any better way found for the imploying of what we can spare thereof than the thus sanctifiing and devoting it unto God I am confident whatever mens practices may be their consciences cannot gainsay but do highly approve and commend to them what is pressed We may complain fondly of the shortnesse of time but evident it is that we spend much upon this world much upon our games much upon our pleasures much upon our ambitions much also upon those necessary acts of life Eating Drinking Sleeping and much to upon God knowes we know not what Now let those who account themselves to have least leisure find but time enough to consider when they go to bed every night how much time they have lost or trifled away that day and setting it down every night reckon at the weeks end and see to how many hours it will amount Do so but one week o● two and see if you do not blush at the ordinary excuse for neglect of prayer that you have not time Fo● the issue will be of these two the own either my whole time hath been really imployed and that upon my common affaires and necessary care of my body or else some part of it to wit so much as hath not been imployed hath been trifled away Now utrum horum Let me take which I please If it be supposed all to have been imployed is it not most unreasonable that worldly businesse and my body should have all and God and my soul have none or next to none Did God make me for himself and allot me such a measure of time for his glory and for provision for my soul and are they only some few minutes which I can find either for him or it Was I say every day given me for these ends and can I spend all without considerable seeking either as I do if I allow nothing to private devotion Ought I not therefore to lessen my