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	life_n	see_v	9,943	5	3.4753	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36110	A discourse, proving from Scripture and reason that the life of man is not limited by any absolute decree of God by the author of The duty of man, &c.	Author of The duty of man.	1680 (1680)	Wing D1617; ESTC R14478	40,954	140

DISCOURSE Proving from SCRIPTURE and REASON THAT THE Life of Man Is not Limited by any Absolute DECREE OF GOD. By the Author of the DUTY of MAN c. LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Henry Bonwicke at the Red Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard 1680. THE PREFACE Reader THE following Discourse is of so small bulk that a Preface may seem as needless and rediculous as an Index In some few hours it may be perused and then both the design of the Author and of the Book may be known It may be thou desirest to know what was the occasion of the following Discourse But I know not if I be obliged to answer this and such like idle questions yet to satisfie thy curiosity know that the Author was unhappily engaged to converse with a Society of men who frequently debated this and such like queries and mostly he was opposed by the greater part as maintaining an unreasonable position Whether their charge be true or false is a thing better determined by others unconcerned than either by them or me I know very well their clamorous calumnies and reproaches which since I cannot shun I shall endeavor to slight as indeed unworthy to be regarded If men of good consideration dislike any thing in the Discourse I promise them upon Information I shall either endeavor to satisfie them or to rest satisfied with what they say Nay further if there be any Line in it inconsistent with Piety and Religion freely reject it for I perswade thee if the Author knew any such he world burn the Book for its sake But I hope upon trial there shall be found no harsh notion in it to offend the most squeamish conscience For the opinion I have rejected is in my judgment inconsistent with the Divine Goodness and Holiness repugnant to the freedom of Humane Nature and destructive of all lawful means for the preservation of a mans life While as that sentiment I embrace begets in mens minds noble and generous conceptions to promote real Piety and Religion and intemperance upon the account that Piety is the meanes to prolong our lives and wickedness the cause of our short lives And that this is no cheat or delusion the wisest of men hath left upon record Pro. 11.19 As righteousness tendeth to Life so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death This brings to my memory the Psalmists advice with which I shall conclude What man is he that desireth life and loveth many days that he may see good Keep thy Tongue from evil and thy Lips from speaking guile Depart from evil and do good Seek peace and pursue it But the wicked and deceitful man shall not live out half his days OF THE PERIOD OF Humane Life JOB 14.5 6. Seeing his days are determined the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass Turn from him that he may rest till he shall accomplish as an hireling his day THis excellent Book of Job represents to us a plain and unquestionable instance of the various successes all Humane actiions are liable to and of the promiscuous administration of Divine Providence to particular persons Here we may read of Job's happy and flourishing condition that he was the greatest of all the men of the East and of his low and afflicted state poor even to a Proverb and in a condition that only pleaded pity and compassion and how again the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning Irom this various administration of Providence men have taken occasion to make divers inferences The scoffing Atheist hath from thence wickedly concluded that God hath no care of Humane Affairs If God say these scoffers had any care of this World he would never suffer those men who have corrupted their ways by Treachery and Deceit to prosper and enjoy an affluence of all worldly delights whereas the verruous and godly man who takes heed to his ways lest he sin and who throughout the whole course of his life hath carefully studied to keep a conscience void of offence towards God and Man is notwithstanding a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief as plagued all the day long and chastened every Morning and hath Waters of a full Cup wrung out to him If God say they concerned himself with Humane Affairs he would never suffer the Tabernacles of Robbers to prosper and the House of the Upright to be ruined and destroyed This is without all contradiction a great stumbling block and offence to the Blind Atheist and hath even been a sad trial to the best of Gods people Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very Treacherously Was a question Jeremy could hardly at first resolve And we find Job and the Prophet Habakkuk very much puzled with it and the psalmist plainly confesseth that his feet were almost gone and that his steps had well nigh slipt when he saw the prosperity of the wicked Psal 73. To see bad men prospering in their wicked purposes and undertakings and good men unsuccessful and frustrated in their just attempts has been none of the least Topicks the Epicurean Atheists have made use of in their exempting this World from the Divine Rule and Dominion It was this single consideration that made Cato who was once a Preacher of Providence how Orthodox I enquire not accuse the dominion and Government of the gods of instability and unjustness that Caesar who tyrannically invaded the Rights of the Commonwealth of Rome should be successful in so unjust attempts and Pompey put to the worst and overthrown in the lawful defence of his Country this stumbled him exceedingly 'T is true some few of the Learned and Sober Heathens did not thus rashly fall foul upon Providence but very wisely inferred the being of a future State where the vertuous shall be rewarded and the vitious punished And those Holy men in Scripture who did fret because of the prosperity of the wicked quickly perceived their folly and error and that the wicked were only fed like Sheep for the Slaughter and as the Poet excellently expresseth it tolluntur in altum ut lapsu graviore ruant Job's Friends though they did not directly fall foul upon the Divine Providence yet it is evident they were of opinion that God would never have afflicted Job with such sad calamities if he had been upright and sincere Remember saith Eliphaz who ever perished being innocent Or where were the Righteous cut off ch 4.7 Bildad tells Job If thou wert pure and upright surely now he would awake for thee ch 8.6 To both these Zophar succeeds with a charge as grievous and bitter For thou hast said my Doctrine is pure and I am clean in thine eyes But O that God would speak and open his lips against thee ch 11. v. 4 5. These were the Cordials Job's Friends afforded him while as his afflicted condition pleaded pity from his Friends These

Consideration also prevail with thee that my untender friends sadly mistake thy design in afflicting me they conclude it is for some secret heinous crime that thy judgements are upon me O that thou wouldst turn from thy wrath that I may enjoy some rest before I go whence I shall not return This phrase turn from him is sometimes taken in a very bad sense Thus we find the wicked sadly characterized as a people who desire God to depart from them but as it is uttered by the people of God under the pressure of afflictions it implies no more but a serious desire that God would be pleased to remove that burden Now in such innocent petitions there appeareth no crime for it is certain that afflictions simply considered are grievous even to the best of Man kind there is no affliction saith the Apostle for the present that is joyous but grievous 'T is true impatience under affliction is an excess which no excuse whatsoever can pardon there are some persons of such hasty complexions that they rise in passion against God if they meet with the least affliction just like that wretched man who said this evil is of the Lord why should we wait any longer upon him But those petitions of the Faithful in holy writ although at the first view they seem to be peremptory and absolute yet they are truly qualified and submissive and at the most only express the harmless resentments of innocent nature that cannot but express how contrary afflictions are to it That he may rest ut quiescat sc paululum that his affliction being removed he may yet enjoy a little space to solace himself till he accomplish his day I will purposely decline the answer of that querie Whether it is lawful to wish death when our condition is charged with a surplusage of caamity for the brevity I design will not suffer me to survey the difficulties of that case only in the general I shall add two things 1. If the affliction be violent fierce and seemingly durable rendering us uncapable of exercising any duty I question not but common reason will suggest to every sober man that in that case Death is more eligible than Life Yet 2. since we are ignorant what God designs to us by sending us such afflictions it is our part to submit to the Lords will and say Good is the will of the Lord. Thus although we may comparatively and submissively wish Death upon the account of some acute trials yet it is never lawful to be peremptory and absolute in such desires for frequently the happy event makes men conclude that is was good for them they were afflicted Rest c. Methinks the very sound of this word is full of ravishing sweetness and pleasure and yet to those who are stated in a condition of woe and Misery it is bitter and harsh as the most ravishing and pleasant Musick is in the Ear of him who is sad those who never tasted the honey-comb know not its sweetness the men who have been always drudges and slaves have no discerning what Liberty is and those who from their birth have been accustomed to pain know not their misery so sensibly But to have once enjoyed blessings and on a sudden to be deprived of them not only the unexpected change but also their former happiness adds to their misery and makes their condition more unsufferable If man had been created to toil and labor his eating of bread in the sweat of his face had been no curse but to have been placed in a blessed and happy state and by his folly to be hurled into a state of misery and pain that compleats his calamity and makes him sensible how miserable a thing it is to have been happy This single consideration seems to add very much to Jobs misery his condition was once more than ordinary happy and the amission of the comforts he formerly enjoyed makes him pathetically cry out O that I were as in months past as in the days when God preserved me but now as he sadly complains they that are younger than I have me in derision If Job in this state of woe had been perswaded of the certain change of his condition and that his latter end should be more blessed than his beginning the expected hopes of this had served to allay and mitigate his sorrow and to render his case more sufferable and easie It is the hopes of rest that puts strength in the wearied traveller it was the expected reward and assurance of a future blessedness and better resurrection which made those Worthies Heb. 11. so cheerfully undergo suffering What the happiness of the Saints rest is I am not able to represent it being so far above any thing we can in this imperfect state conceive or imagine The advantages that attend our present tranquility and rest are many and great which to enumerate would be prolix and tedious but if from that we should frame to our selves an Idea of that Celestial Rest how imperfect would it be any Rest we injoy here is uncertain an unthought-of causality may impair it but the Rest that remains for the people of God is everlasting there is no fear of losing it Heaven is a place free from trouble and there is nothing that can imbitter that pleasant state Philosophers have a saying that the end of of Motion is Rest this is indeed true of all those motions and trials the servants of God meet with the way to the Kingdom is spread over with thistles thorow many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but those Waves of affliction will quickly over and when the day breaks these shadows will flee away This Winter will soon be past and the singing of the Birds will come and Christians who by faith and patience continue in well-doing shall ere be long be placed in those mansions of Rest that are in Emanuels land Alas how insensible do we remain under the enjoyment of our outward comforts when we are blessed with food liberty and health we are but sensibly stupid and ignorant what is the value of those mercies but if hunger and want begin to pinch us if our former liberty be hedged in if sickness and pain seize upon us then we begin to gather some sense and we accuse our selves for our ingratitude to God Till he shall accomplish as an Hireling his day for the better understanding of this similitude I shall in four particulars compare the days of man with the days of an Hireling and in each of them make application to Jobs case 1. The days of an Hireling denotes a time set prefixed and limited for the performance of some particular piece of service and are not the days of man also allotted him for to do his masters business We were not born to be idle and negligent sure God had some great design in the Creation of man than this now this particular quadrates very well with Jobs case and seems to