Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	faith_n	life_n	soul_n	6,759	5	4.9416	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62598	A sermon preached at the funeral of the Reverend Benjamin Whichcot, D.D. and minister of S. Lawrence Jewry, London, May 24th, 1683 by John Tillotson ...	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.; Whichcote, Benjamin, 1609-1683.	1683 (1683)	Wing T1235; ESTC R985	14,500	40

he preached constantly and relieved the poor and had their children taught to reade at his own charge and made up differences among the neighbours Here he stayed till by the promotion of the Reverend Dr. Wilkins his predecessour in this Place to the Bishoprick of Chester he was by his interest and recommendation presented to this Church But during the building of it upon the invitation of the Court of Aldermen in the Mayoralty of Sir William Turner he preached before that Honourable Auditory at Guild Hall Chapel every Sunday in the afternoon with great acceptance and approbation for about the space of seven years When his Church was built he bestowed his pains here twice a week where he had the general love and respect of his Parish and a very considerable and judicious Auditory though not very numerous by reason of the weakness of his voice in his declining Age. It pleased God to bless him as with a plentifull Estate so with a charitable mind which yet was not so well known to many because in the disposal of his charity he very much affected secrecy He frequently bestowed his alms as I am informed by those who best knew on poor house-keepers disabled by age or sickness to support themselves thinking those to be the most proper objects of it He was rather frugal in expense upon himself that so he might have wherewithall to relieve the necessities of others And he was not onely charitable in his life but in a very bountifull manner at his death bequeathing in pious and charitable Legacies to the value of a thousand pounds To the Library of the University of Cambridge fifty pounds and of King's College one hundred pounds and of Emanuel College twenty pounds To which College he had been a considerable benefactour before having founded there several Scholarships to the value of a thousand pounds out of a Charity with the disposal whereof he was entrusted and which not without great difficulty and pains he at last recovered To the Poor of the several Places where his Estate lay and where he had been Minister he gave above one hundred pounds Among those who had been his Servants or were so at his death he disposed in Annuities and Legacies in money to the value of above three hundred pounds To other charitable uses and among the poorer of his Relations above three hundred pounds To every one of his Tenants he left a Legacy according to the proportion of the Estate they held by way of remembrance of him And to one of them that was gone much behind he remitted in his Will seventy pounds And as became his great goodness he was ever a remarkably kind Landlord forgiving his Tenants and always making abatements to them for hard years or any other accidental losses that happened to them I must not omit the wise provision he made in his Will to prevent Law-suits among the Legatees by appointing two or three persons of greatest prudence and Authority among his Relations final Arbitratours of all differences that should arise Having given this account of his last Will I come now to the sad part of all sad I mean to us but happiest to him A little before Easter last he went down to Cambridge where upon taking a great Cold he fell into a distemper which in a few days put a period to his life He died in the house of his ancient and most learned Friend Dr. Cudworth Master of Christ's College During his sickness he had a constant calmness and serenity of mind and under all his bodily weakness possest his soul in great patience After the Prayers for the Visitation of the Sick which he said were excellent prayers had been used he was put in mind of receiving the Sacrament to which he answered that he most readily embraced the proposal And after he had received it said to Dr. Cudworth I heartily thank you for this most Christian office I thank you for putting me in mind of receiving this Sacrament adding this pious ejaculation The Lord fulfill all his declarations and promises and pardon all my weaknesses and imperfections He disclaimed all merit in himself and declared that whatever he was he was through the grace and goodness of God in Jesus Christ. He expressed likewise great dislike of the Principles of Separation and said he was the more desirous to receive the Sacrament that he might declare his full Communion with the Church of Christ all the world over He disclaimed Popery and as things of near affinity with it or rather parts of it all superstition and usurpation upon the consciences of men He thanked God that he had no pain in his body nor disquiet in his mind Towards his last he seemed rather unwilling to be detained any longer in this state not for any pains he felt in himself but for the trouble he gave his friends saying to one of them who had with great care attended him all along in his sickness My dear friend thou hast taken a great deal of pains to uphold a crazy body but it will not do I pray thee give me no more Cordials for why shouldst thou keep me any longer out of that happy state to which I am going I thank God I hope in his mercy that it shall be well with me And herein God was pleased particularly to answer those devout and well-weighed petitions of his which he frequently used in his Prayer before Sermon which I shall set down in his own words and I doubt not those that were his constant hearers do well remember them And super add this O Lord to all the grace and favour which thou hast shewn us all along in life not to remove us hence but with all advantage for Eternity when we shall be in a due preparation of mind in a holy constitution of soul in a perfect renunciation of the guise of this mad and sinfull world when we shall be intirely resigned up to thee when we shall have clear acts of faith in God by Jesus Christ high and reverential thoughts of thee in our minds inlarged and inflamed affections towards thee c. And whensoever we shall come to leave this world which will be when thou shalt appoint for the issues of life and death are in thy hands afford us such a mighty power and presence of thy good Spirit that we may have solid consolation in believing and avoid all consternation of mind all doubtfulness and uncertainty concerning our everlasting condition and at length depart in the faith of God's Elect c. Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace Thus you have the short History of the life and death of this eminent Person whose just Character cannot be given in few words and time will not allow we to use many To be able to describe him aright it were necessary one should be like him for which reason I must content my self with a very imperfect draught of him

the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may better be rendred whilst we converse or sojourn in the body than whilst we are at home Because the design of the Apostle is to shew that the body is not our house but our tabernacle and that whilst we are in the body we are not at home but pilgrims and strangers And this notion the Heathens had of our present life and condition in this world Ex vita discedo saith Tully tanquam ex hospitio non tanquam ex domo commorandi enim natura diversorium nobis non habitandi locum dedit We go out of this life as it were from an Inn and not from our home nature having designed it to us as a place to sojourn but not to dwell in We are absent from the Lord that is we are detained from the blessed sight and enjoyment of God and kept out of the possession of that happiness which makes Heaven So that the Apostle makes an immediate opposition between our continuance in the body and our blissfull enjoyment of God and lays it down for a certain truth that whilst we remain in the body we are detained from our happiness and that so soon as ever we leave the body we shall be admitted into it knowing that whilst we converse in the body we are absent from the Lord. And ver 8. we are willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord intimating that so soon as we quit these bodies we shall be admitted to the blessed sight and enjoyment of God My design from this Text is to draw some usefull Corollaries or Conclusions from this Assertion of the Apostle That whilst we are in these bodies we are detained from our happiness and that so soon as ever we depart out of them we shall be admitted to the possession and enjoyment of it And they are these 1. This Assertion shews us the vanity and falshood of that opinion or rather dream concerning the sleep of the soul from the time of death till the general Resurrection This is chiefly grounded upon that frequent Metaphor in Scripture by which death is resembled to sleep and those that are dead are said to be fallen asleep But this Metaphor is no where in Scripture that I know of applied to the soul but to the body resting in the grave in order to its being awakened and raised up at the Resurrection And thus it is frequently used with express reference to the body Dan. 12.2 Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake Matth. 27.52 And the graves were opened and many bodies of saints which slept arose Acts 13.36 David after he had served his own generation by the will of God fell on sleep and was laid to his fathers and saw corruption which surely can no otherwise be understood than of his body 1 Cor. 15.21 Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that slept that is the resurrection of his body is the earnest and assurance that ours also shall be raised And ver 51. We shall not all sleep but shall all be changed where the Apostle certainly speaks both of the death and change of these corruptible bodies 1 Thessal 4.14 If we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them also that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him That is the bodies of those that died in the Lord shall be raised and accompany him at his coming So that it is the body which is said in Scripture to sleep and not the soul. For that is utterly inconsistent with the Apostle's Assertion here in the Text that while we are in the body we are absent from the Lord and that so soon as we depart out of the body we shall be present with the Lord. For surely to be with the Lord must signifie a state of happiness which sleep is not but onely of inactivity Besides that the Apostle's Argument would be very flat and it would be but a cold encouragement against the fear of death that so soon as we are dead we shall fall asleep and become insensible But the Apostle useth it as an Argument why we should be willing to dye as soon as God pleaseth and the sooner the better because so soon as we quit these bodies we shall be present with the Lord that is admitted to the blissfull sight and enjoyment of him and while we abide in the body we are detained from our happiness But if our souls shall sleep as well as our bodies till the general Resurrection it is all one whether we continue in the body or not as to any happiness we shall enjoy in the mean time which is directly contrary to the main scope of the Apostle's Argument 2. This Assertion of the Apostle's doth perfectly conclude against the feigned Purgatory of the Church of Rome which supposeth the far greater number of true and faithfull Christians of those who dye in the Lord and have obtained eternal redemption by him from hell not to pass immediately into a state of happiness but to be detained in the suburbs of Hell in extremity of torment equal to that of hell for degree though not for duration till their souls be purged and the guilt of temporal punishments which they are liable to be some way or other paid off and discharged They suppose indeed some very few holy persons especially those who suffer Martyrdom to be so perfect at their departure out of the body as to pass immediately into Heaven because they need no purgation But most Christians they suppose to dye so imperfect that they stand in need of being purged and according to the degree of their imperfection are to be detain'd a shorter or a longer time in Purgatory But now besides that there is no Text in Scripture from whence any such state can probably be concluded as is acknowledged by many learned men of the Church of Rome and even that Text which they have most insisted upon they shall be saved yet so as by fire is given up by them as insufficient to conclude the thing Estius is very glad to get off it by saying there is nothing in it against Purgatory Why no body pretends that but we might reasonably expect that there should be something for it in a Text which hath been so often produced and urged by them for the proof of it I say besides that there is nothing in Scripture for Purgatory there are a great many things against it and utterly inconsistent with it In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus which was designed to represent to us the different states of good and bad men in another world there is not the least intimation of Purgatory but that good men pass immediately into a state of happiness and bad men into a place of torment And Saint John Rev. 14.13 pronounceth all that dye in the Lord happy because they rest from their labours which they cannot be

I shall not insist upon his exemplary piety and devotion towards God of which his whole life was one continued Testimony Nor will I praise his profound Learning for which he was justly had in so great reputation The moral improvements of his mind a Godlike temper and disposition as he was wont to call it he chiefly valued and aspired after that universal charity and goodness which he did continually preach and practise His Conversation was exceeding kind and affable grave and winning prudent and profitable He was slow to declare his judgment and modest in delivering it Never passionate never peremptory so far from imposing upon others that he was rather apt to yield And though he had a most profound and well-poized judgment yet was he of all men I ever knew the most patient to hear others differ from him and the most easie to be convinced when good Reason was offered and which is seldom seen more apt to be favourable to another man's Reason than his own Studious and inquisitive men commonly at such an age at forty or fifty at the utmost have fixed and settled their Judgments in most Points and as it were made their last Vnderstanding supposing they have thought or read or heard what can be said on all sides of things and after that they grow positive and impatient of contradiction thinking it a disparagement to them to alter their judgment But our deceased Friend was so wise as to be willing to learn to the last knowing that no man can grow wiser without some change of his mind without gaining some knowledge which he had not or correcting some errour which he had before He had attained so perfect a mastery of his Passions that for the latter and greatest part of his life he was hardly ever seen to be transported with Anger and as he was extremely carefull not to provoke any man so not to be provoked by any using to say if I provoke a man he is the worse for my company and if I suffer my self to be provoked by him I shall be the worse for his He very seldom reproved any person in company otherwise than by silence or some sign of uneasiness or some very soft and gentle word which yet from the respect men generally bore to him did often prove effectual For he understood humane nature very well and how to apply himself to it in the most easie and effectual ways He was a great encourager and kind directour of young Divines and one of the most candid hearers of Sermons I think that ever was So that though all men did mightily reverence his Judgment yet no man had reason to fear his Censure He never spake well of himself nor ill of others making good that Saying of Pansa in Tully neminem alterius qui suae confideret virtuti invidere that no man is apt to envy the worth and vertues of another that hath any of his own to trust to In a word he had all those vertues and in a high degree which an excellent temper great consideration long care and watchfulness over himself together with the assistance of God's grace which he continually implored and mightily relied upon are apt to produce Particularly he excelled in the vertues of Conversation humanity and gentleness and humility a prudent and peaceable reconciling temper And God knows we could very ill at this time have spared such a Man and have lost from among us as it were so much balme for the healing of the Nation which is now so miserably rent and torn by those wounds which we madly give our selves But since God hath thought good to deprive us of him let his vertues live in our memory and his example in our lives Let us endeavour to be what he was and we shall one day be what he now is of blessed memory on earth and happy for ever in heaven And now methinks the consideration of the Argument I have been upon and of that great Example that is before us should raise our minds above this world and fix them upon the glory and happiness of the other Let us then begin heaven here in the frame and temper of our minds in our heavenly affections and conversation in a due preparation for and in earnest desires and breathings after that blessed state which we firmly believe and assuredly hope to be one day possessed of when we shall be removed out of this sink of sin and sorrows into the Regions of bliss and immortality where we shall meet all those worthy and excellent persons who are gone before us and whose conversation was so delightfull to us in this world and will be much more so to us in the other when the spirits of just men shall be made perfect and shall be quit of all those infirmities which did attend and lessen them in this mortal state when we shall meet again with our dear Brother and all those good men whom we knew in this world and with the Saints and excellent persons of all Ages to enjoy their blessed friendship and society for ever in the presence of the blessed God where is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore In a firm persuasion of this happy state let us every one of us say with David and with the same ardency of affection that he did As the heart panteth after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God O when shall I come and appear before God That so the life which we now live in this world may be a patient continuance in well-doing in a joyfull expectation of the blessed hope and the glorious appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory now and for ever Now the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ the great Shepherd of the sheep through the bloud of the everlasting Covenant make us perfect in every good work to doe his will working in us always that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever Amen THE END