Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	good_a	know_v	life_n	7,850	5	4.5045	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62324	A sermon preached before the King at New-Market, April 2, 1676 by Samuel Scattergood ...	Scattergood, Samuel, 1646-1696.	1676 (1676)	Wing S843; ESTC R14320	12,816	31

not though the whole world be his enemy while God is his Friend He is not to be won by its enticements nor daunted by its threatnings but he stands firm and unshaken upon this rock exalted above its frowns and smiles Conscience that is so terrible an enemy to him that fears not God is his most faithfull friend and it is as comfortable a friend as it is a dreadfull enemy It alwaies joyns with God it is his Vice-roy to pronounce that sentence on Earth which he passes in Heaven While this therefore tells him that God is his refuge and strength he may say with the Psalmist what follows I will not fear though the Earth be removed and though the Mountains be carried into the midst of the sea This will enable him to comport and demean himself like a Child of God in all conditions It will teach him with S. Paul in whatsoever state he is therewith to be content This will sweeten every bitter cup. This will lighten the burden of his affliction This will make all his bed in his sickness This will fill him with joy even at the hour of his death and enable him to deliver up his soul into the hand of God with comfort and full assurance of a blessed Resurrection And then in that great and terrible day of the Lord wherein the Heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat when the whole World shall tremble and neither Heaven nor Earth be able to abide the dreadfull approach of that great Judge but both shall pass away and be consumed before him when the Wicked shall call in vain to the Mountains and Rocks to fall on them and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn Then shall Conscience shew it self to be a most faithfull friend embolden him to lift up his head with joy plead for him against all his Accusers and through the merits and mercy of Christ acquit him at that grand Tribunal Then shall this Wisdom as it hath freed him from the greatest evil from sin and hell so also confer upon him the greatest Good and invest him with eternall Holiness and Happiness Thirdly and lastly All other Wisdom without this is but meer Folly but this of it self alone without the help and concurrence of any thing else which the world calls Wisdom is sufficient to make us eternally happy For in what else shall we place Wisdom if not in the Fear of the Lord Shall we place it in pleasures Alas there are none to be found any where but at Gods right hand The pleasures of this world are but torments they seem perhaps to delight us a little for the present but soon after they sting us to the heart Shall we place it in Riches They are but fading and perishing enjoyments and must shortly leave us and if they should tarry with us never so long the wise man tells us that they profit not in the day of wrath Shall we place it in Honour there is nothing more uncertain then that for though it be never so splendid and glorious for a while yet it must ere long be laid in the dust Indeed Honour and Authority is so far from being an ordinary and indifferent thing that if we consider it aright it is perhaps the greatest temporal Blessing that God hath to bestow upon Man and Kings and Rulers have this happiness above the rest of Mankind that they have power to do more good in the world and to bring greater glory to God then inferiour persons and consequently may procure for themselves a more honourable Throne and a brighter Crown in Heaven All shall be there full of glory and every one perfectly satisfied and content with his own condition but yet there shall be a difference and while some shall but twinkle as the Stars others shall shine as the Sun The meanest Subject that hath been loyal to his King and obedient to his God shall at the last day be rewarded with an incorruptible Crown for we shall all be Kings and Priests unto God But I know not any thing in Scripture that doth not freely permit a godly and religious Prince to hope to be as highly advanced above his Subjects in Heaven as ever he was here one Earth if he manages his Sceptre with this Wisdom here in my Text which will be sure to establish his Throne and make his Crown to flourish Again shall we place Wisdom in Learning This also if it be sanctified by Grace is a very great Blessing but without that it is as great a Curse without Grace it will but enable a man to sin more powerfully insomuch that he that hath a learned head and an unsanctified heart may almost stand in competition with the Devil himself who should be the Master worker of iniquity and gain most Proselytes to the kingdom of Darkness The ignorantest Pesant may make a sorry shift to grope out his way to hell even blindfold but the learned Atheist sees so many roads to it that he will pick and chuse his way so discreetly as to be sure to provide for himself one of the hottest places S. Paul had continued a Persecutour to his dying day notwithstanding all that Learning that he got at the feet of Gamaliel had he not also learned Christ And therefore he professes this to be the onely true Wisdom for saith he I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord Phil. 3.8 But to rise yet one step higher then Learning can advance us Suppose God should endue us with the Spirit of Prophesie to foretell things to come or with a power to work Miracles and to cast out devils yet we should be never the nearer to Heaven for all this without the Wisdom here in my Text. For one of these faculties was bestowed on Balaam and yet for all his good wishes 't is probable that he died not the death of the Righteous and the other on Judas and yet himself was a Devil Alas what were we the better if we knew the hour of our death if we knew too that from that hour our everlasting punishment should bear its date What would it profit us though we knew the minute when the Archangel should begin to sound his Trump if we knew withall that that sound should summon us to hear the Sentence of our eternall condemnation Such Wisdom as this would be so far from making us happy that it would antedate our misery and torment us before the time All other things then so long as we want this one thing which is needfull will be but weak Advocates to plead our cause before Christs Tribunal And as all the Wisdom of the world will profit us nothing without this so this of it self alone is sufficient to make us happy He that hath never been either at Rome or Athens nay though he knows not so much as one letter of the Alphabet is wise enough if he hath but learned the Cross of Christ He that is never so poor hath wealth enough if he be but rich in Faith and though he appear to men as having nothing yet possesses all things The Brother of low degree that is never so mean and contemptible in the eyes of the world if he hath but this Wisdom in the Text is highly honourable in the sight of God But to what purpose should I spend any more words in illustrating the incomparable worth of this Wisdom which as it deserves all so it needs no commendation I will therefore detain you no longer but conclude all in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah cap. 9. v. 23 24. Thus saith the Lord Let not the Wise man glory in his wisdom neither let the Mighty man glory in his Might let not the Rich man glory in his Riches But let him that glories glory in this that he understands and knows me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness judgement and righteousness in the Earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. FINIS

A SERMON Preached before the KING AT NEW-MARKET April 2. 1676. BY SAMUEL SCATTERGOOD M. A. Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge Published by his MAJESTIES special Command CAMBRIDGE Printed by John Hayes Printer to the Vniversity 1676. Job 28.28 And unto Man he said Behold the fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from evil is Vnderstanding THere is nothing that Man doth more earnestly pursue and hunt after then Wisdom and Understanding and there is nothing that God is more desirous that he should obtain And yet such is the obstinacy of our will and the perverseness of our Nature that when God shews us the true wisdom and the way to it we will not follow his directions but seek for it according to our own fansie where it is never to be had And then no wonder if in the end we prove such fools as to reap no other fruit of our labour but shame and repentance no wonder if we meet with death where we expected life and find destruction in those things wherein we sought for happiness For it hath ever been the devils policy even from the very beginning of the world so cunningly to counterfeit this inestimable Jewel that if we have not constant recourse to Gods Word to trie every thing we take for wisdom by that unerring touchstone and weigh it carefully in the ballance of the Sanctuary we may easily be deceived with a worthless trifle instead of this pearl of great price we may embrace a shadow for a substance and court ignorance and folly instead of Wisdom and Understanding Thus he overthrew our first Parents by perswading them to aspire to a greater measure of Knowledge then God had thought fit to bestow upon them and he hath all along made use of the same temptation to the ruine of their Posterity He found it successfull then and it hath been so ever since and among all his wiles and stratagems he hath none by which he can so easily inveigle us as this no bait so fair so taking and so universally prevalent among the Sons of men as this of Wisdom and Knowledge Nay I may in some sense say that he hath no temptation at all by which he can move us but this alone For did he not perswade men into a good opinion of themselves and that their wicked actions were wise and prudent he could never induce them to embrace his temptations and therefore he sutes them to every particular mans humour and disposition He offers not the ladder of Honour to the Sluggard upon which he knows the ambitious man will venture his life and fortunes but he brings a pillow to the one and a scepter to the other he propounds ease and idleness and sleep to the former and perswades him that wisdom shall court him in a dream and he shewes the latter all the kingdoms of the World and the glory of them and tells him that Wisdom is to be found no where but in the highest honour and most splendid preferments He tells the Miser that it consists in riches and that he must hoard it up in his coffers he tells the Glutton that he shall find it in a dainty dish and he bids the Revenger drink it up in the blood of his enemies But above all other persons those who one would think should be the best able to resist his temptations I mean the Learned are often times most easily foiled by him Their great learning and parts most excellent endowments which might be very serviceable to Gods glory and the good of his Church he perswades them to abuse in the maintaining of wrangling Disputations and unnecessary and sometimes dangerous Controversies By which means he rents the seamless coat of Christ divides the Church into Schisms and Factions and shakes all into disorder and Confusion He tells them that to know Christ and him crucified is but a mean piece of knowledge fit onely for men of weaker capacities to rest content with But as for them he would have them fore aloft and employ their time and study about deeper contemplations examine what God was doing before he created the World scan all the intrigues of his Providence sound the fathomless abyss of his unsearchable Decrees rifle if it were possible his most secret closet and curiously prie into those things which are concealed from Angels This saith he is Wisdom and this is Understanding worthy to be acquired by men of Parts and Learning And this vain and wicked Curiosity this unlawfull thirst after that Knowledge which is hidden from us was the occasion of these words of my Text and indeed of this whole Chapter For Jobs three Friends were very bold and foolishly positive in their assertions concerning Gods Decrees They thought it was altogether inconsistent with his infinite Goodness to suffer either the Righteous to be in adversity or the Wicked to prosper in this world And therefore when they considered that their friend Job who but a while before had been a mighty Prince was all of a sudden reduced to most extream poverty and as it were in a moment by unparalleled disasters deprived of his whole Estate his Children his health and brought down from a Throne to a Dunghill they stood all amazed and astonished at his unexpected calamity and instead of performing the duty of Friends and comforting him in his affliction they most unfriendly and uncharitably censure him And as if they had been of Gods privy Counsell had stood by him and throughly understood the whole design of his Providence in afflicting so severely his servant Job they presently conclude him to be a most grievous sinner and that whatsoever specious and fair shews he had made of Righteousness and Integrity yet they were all false and counterfeit and that God had now unmasked him and by his heavy judgements plainly discovered to all the world that he was a most notorious Hypocrite and that he had marked him and set him up as a Butt against which he would shoot all the Arrows of his fury and indignation All this Job hears and endures with patience He was sensible enough that God had afflicted him and he knew too that it was not for his Hypocrisie but for some secret end best known to his infinite Wisdom and therefore he enquires not after it but labours to perform his own Duty and to receive evil from the Hand of God if he sends it to him as well as good and patiently to bear whatsoever burden he laies upon him as one that was well assured that though in a little wrath he hid his face from him for a moment yet with everlasting kindness he would have mercy on him This is all the wisdom he aspires to he meddles not with Gods secret counsell nor searches after the Knowledge which he knew was too wonderfull for him And what he himself practises he advises his Friends here to practise too and blames them for pretending so fondly to give an account of the