Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	eternal_a	life_n	soul_n	14,602	5	5.1897	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67616	A sermon preached at St. Margarets in Westminster at the funeral of Mrs. Susanna Gray, daughter of Henry Gray, Esq., of Enfield in Staffordshire, who on the 29 of October 1654 began her eternal sabbath.	Waring, Robert, 1614-1658.	1657 (1657)	Wing W869; ESTC R27055	15,128	48

the rule of our passions and sufferings Do we dayly profess to God Thy will be done and now it appears to be particularly Gods will seeing nothing is brought to passe in Heaven or in Earth without the will of him that ruleth over all why doe we not give the Lord leave to do what he will in Heaven and Earth whom we so often standing professe the Maker of Heaven and Earth what Atheisme now possesseth us because Gods will crosseth ours to stick at last to pronounce with good Eli in as hard a case as great a loss as any we can complain of the utter ruine of his family and Excision from the Priesthood the loss of two sons and the Ark of God at once It is the Lord let him do what seemeth good unto him 3. There is yet a greater reason of thy Resignation in this Case in that God hath the propriety and right the Soveraign Dominion of all we only the short use If God recall but his own Gift what Injury what so great cause of complaint May not God as well take the Child away from the Mother to whom it was committed only to breed up in the fear of God as the Mother takes it home from the Nurse 'T is call'd to a better home what Relation or Title soever thou canst plead in the dear loss Whether thy Husband thy Child thy Father Brother or thy friend which is as thy own soul God pleads a nearer claim his Creature his Image his Member the price of his redemption c. his by many Titles his even before he was and his when he shall not be 3 Duty or Inquiry How we are from the present sense of anothers death to prepare for our own 1. Prepare by a tender and watchfull apprehension of all those Memento's and Remembrances of Mortality wherewith God and Nature dayly allarum us so that nothing is more frequently represented howsoever nothing be less thought on than death and we at last complain of a surprisal Like to the Man in the old story who had covenanted with death that he should before his last stroak give some warning with a Finger at least lift up and yet after many funerals of his friends and many parcel-funerals and decayes of his own body and senses being to die required some other Messengers and Fore-runners of his end and challenged Death for not knocking at the door before he entred only because he would not hear the knocks Amongst the many Remembrances of death So the Captain of fifty seeing the other Captains consum'd by str● foll upon his face with I pray thee let my life be precious in thy sight 2 Kings 1 13. the most sensible and sharp admonitions towards this preparation are sounded to us by the Last groans of our expiring friends as by the last Trump that Grave which buries part of our Souls with their bodies must needs call some of our thoughts that way And how few are there amongst us that have lived half the age of man that hath not out-lived half his Family or Acquaintance That continued Felicity of the Grecian Prince to pass an whole age without the losss of one Friend was a glory or boast not to be seconded by many Now the first preparative for death is the premeditation of it Death like the Basilisk losing its sting and force being first seen and viewed by us 2 Prepare not only by a weariness and contempt of life and of the world wherein you no longer find your Friend but by a more comfortable Thought of going to him and over-taking him Prepare to follow If this could so sweeten Socrates last deadly draught the Thought of passing to the society of Orpheus Homer and the ancient Sages How much more should it make us gladly embrace death that leads us to the society of Angels and takes us not away but restores us to our Friends and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect by the Vision of the most Holy One Especially if we consider that the Friends we go away to are much more than those we part from VVe are gatherd to our Fathers 3 Prepare by casting aside all that makes Death bitter or terrible unto us Now we fear death saith the Monk on Climacus for one of these two Causes either because we love this present Life or Distrust a better So Reuben Gad and Manasse did chuse their seat on this side Jordan because they saw the ground fit for pasture Num. 32 5. Some there are unwilling to leave their Pastures and Cattel for all the beasts and houses Divines or Astrologers talk of in heaven Some with St Peter confounded with the Glories and bright Honours of the world cry out in an Extasie It is good to be here let 's here fix our Tabernacle but the Text tells us He knew not what he said being dazled with the glorious light Luke 9.33 Others that with the Apostles betray a fear of storms and the danger of death though Christ be in the storm with them deserve Christs check O ye of little faith what are you afraid of So that our whole work of Preparation is reduc'd to these two points Contempt of this world Faith hopes of a better that we strive to leave the world its noise and vanities before we depart out of it Look on the earth and all his Comforts as passengers in swift streams still fleeting and parting from us or we from it and as Sojourners or Pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts never fix our delight in a pleasant way or Inne which is suddenly to be quitted And seeing no distance can hinder us more than the banish'd Jews from turning our faces towards the heavenly Jerusalem let us that we may be able with the Martyrs of old to refuse Life in hopes of a better Resurrection lay hold on Eternal life before this life fail us lay hold by a lively faith on the hands of our Saviour stretch'd out to receive us and lay that sure foundation for the time to come of Good Works that best preparative to a good death a good life Let us not rest till we have brought our Souls to that temper of the good Heathen Summan nec metuas diem nec optes neither to fear nor desire over-passionately the day of our change or rather to this Resolution of St. Paul Phil. 1.21 22 23 24. If I live I shall do well if I die I shall do better To me to live is Christ To die is Gain And now that we may with David rise from our sorrow and wash our faces with tears of Joy in the thought of this Virgin who is not lost but gone before us to that place whither we all strive to follow Let us reflect on that principal Comfort the hopes of that life however lost on earth to us yet recover'd in heaven being hid with Christ While your Eyes overflow with tears being fixed on the Corps on the Mantle here dropt below send your thoughts beyond

distraction in Religion The Heaviness of heart for Christs departure caus'd the Disciples to sleep when they should have watched and pray'd St. Gregory breaks off his Comment on Ezekiel to write Epitaphs on his Son as Aaron omits the evening sacrifice or a great part of the Ceremonie at his Sons death 2 In regard of the object we are to mourn for sins first and then for afflictions sicknesses deaths as the Effects and Consequents of sin So that death and other evils are the improper and secondary objects of sorrow Sin the onely proper object of grief and just cause of tears Because 1st Sin is the only evil John 17.15 being the cause of all other evils and without which miseries themselves are not miserable but are turned to the innocent to Exercises of their graces and occasions of redoubled Rewards and Glories 2. Sorrow in other evils save in sins only is useless and brings no proper remedy but adds more disquiet to our troubles Our tears naturally fall upon our breasts as it were to wash the stains of that part and are not to be wasted over graves that may save souls Our tears 't was the complaint of St. Chrys●stome are most abus'd by us wee lavish and spend them where they are not availeable on outward evils or over the dead We seldom saith he weep in the right place But as sins first deserve our sorrow so affliction and misery the consequents of sin more sensibly provoke our griefs and are indeed the just but secondary cause and objects of Sorrow Whence Sicknesses and Deaths are to be considered look'd on as the wages nothing surer than the Hirelings wages the effects and consequents of Sin For first so Sin and Affliction in Scripture are both represented under the name of Death Open my eyes O Lord that I sleep not in death that is in Sin that leads unto Death Ps 13.3 Pray unto the Lord to take away this death only Exod. 10.17 that is the plague of Vermin that did not so much threaten to destroy as to disquiet Pharoabs life In the Prophet Ezek. 7. sword without and death within is threatned when Famine Plague and other messengers of death are denounced whereupon the wise man concludes safely Prov. 8.38 He that loves sin loves death 2. To look on Affliction otherwise as not sent by providence either to punish or to discipline us as the Fiery Tryal either to refine and purge to better us or to consume us as the Wind either to fanne or to scatter us utterly is to look on them no otherwise than the Heathen as Chances and the casual events of the Fates Thus to bear them as things of course without any thoughts of Sin is to say that afflictiō riseth out of the dust or what is a blasphemy God less endureth That God willingly grieveth the children of men Jupiter non nocet nisi ut prosit Sen. From this consideration that Death and all other evils are the effects and consequents of Sin will follow these father Inferences 1. Against security in health or youth that as Death came into the world by Sin so it came over all the world in that all have sinned that we may not wonder when we find Children conceived in Sin should have death bequeathed to them before they are well entred into life Whence they which are not marks large enough for any of Deaths darts for any wound are yet wounded so often by it and find their grave in the womb that even the Child that is not grown to Davids span is yet old enough to die No security in any place or state of life while we carry about us not a body only but a soule temper'd with contrary and corrupt humors and a body of sin and death as well as of flesh We may conclude with the Apostle Rom 8.10 The body is dead through sin VVhat wonder if so many are cut off in the flower of their strength e're they well know how to live and lesse how to die 'T is the sinner not the sick or aged person dies Paradice alone had the tree of Life in it when Adam was cast out of that into this our Farth he brought nothing but Death and the Emblemes of Mortality See him no sooner faln than cast out of Paradice a flaming sword and a destroying Angel driving him from the Tree of Life the skins of Beasts that is Mortality it self serving to cover him and at last he condemn'd to dig continually the earth and to prepare his own Grave His posterity ever since feeding their Luxury and sustaining their life with the death of birds and beasts mortibus vescimur doth not he seem to have planted in this our earth the tree of Death whereon all the fruits perish e'r they come to maturity some in the bud others in the growth VVe passe through so many deaths to Eternal life from the womb of the mother of the world of the earth to heaven In the midst of life we are in death and like sentenc'd persons under a reprieve however we are permitted to live yet to enjoy no certaintie of life as not knowing when we may be called forth to execution VVhile we walk upon earth we alwayes tread over our graves and know not whether our next step may bring us into it For our bed is made in the dark and our graves lie ready open for us but as pits covered with snow 2 Against impatience or Immoderat sorrow If sin brings forth death we are to cōsider death as an evil not so much inflicted by God as drawn upon our selves by our own deserts as it were our own choice and therefore with more patience to be indured Wisd c. 1.13 16. God made not death adeo non est creatione sed ordinatione aut ultione in poenam peccati he fram'd it not he meant it not for a creature but ordain'd it for a punishment of his disobedient creature for then should the great work-man have destroy'd his own works which yet he allow'd to be good the Creator should have been the Abbaddon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Confounder of his own creature but death was the creature of Mans Invention and as his own brood makes way for its birth like the Viper by eating through the entrails of the Parent 3. Against fear of death as well as sorrow that as other Afflictions so death in its self is not simply evil and therefore not simply to be fear'd or mourn'd but in reference to sin the sting of death is sin Sin alone makes death deadly and miseries miserable Death like those creatures which take their colours from the place to which they cleave as the Polypus and Camaeleon becomes good or evill as the persons are to whom it happens It is the voice from Heaven could our dull earth be perswaded to hear it that they are blessed who die in the Lord What is it then we mourn for either our friends losse who is more