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	time_n	10,018	5	3.6095	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30665	The danger of delaying repentance set forth in a sermon preached to the university at St. Mary's Church in Oxford on New-Years-Day, 1691/2 / by Ar. Bury ...	Bury, Arthur, 1624-1713.	1692 (1692)	Wing B6193; ESTC R4405	13,117	31

for the odds is come over to the other side In the midst of Doctors and Nurses and Languors this is no less properly a sudden Death than that which strikes with Lightning Yea nor can it be denied to be in a fatal sense Sudden though Expected For though the man know himself dying yet III. A third Danger is that the same Disease which must shortly deprive the Man of Life hath already deprived him of all Power to do that which too late appeareth both Necessary and Impossible Moses had a Zipporah to help him but this spiritual Circumcision cannot be performed by Proxy nor so easily as the fleshly There are indeed that talk as if it were much easier It is no more but be Sorry and Absolved The former Nature will perform and the latter the Priest and the Death-bed is the most proper Season for both He that can do nothing else can grieve for what is past nor can that more Naturally or more Passionately be done than at sight of approaching Judgment Body and Mind are best disposed for this performance when disabled from all others When old age shall stoop my back then will my head naturally hang like a Bulrush when my head shall be full of Rheumatick Clouds then will my Eyes easily rain plentiful showers of Tears when my Palate can no longer relish Wine or Banquets nor any other parts of my Body feel pleasure then will it be easy to be sick at remembrance of my surfeits Or if I die by an acute Disease the pain will force me to howl upon my Bed But alas What is all this to saving Repentance The Psalmist promiseth that they which sow in tears shall reap in joy and immediately explaineth it he that now goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed shall shortly return with joy and bring his sheaves with him It is the good seed not the showers without it that produce the sheaves he that soweth nothing but Rain cannot hope to reap any thing but Dirt. This Spiritual Circumcision is not like the Fleshly one short act but a constant course of life not performed by a few drops though of blood It is no less than a Death unto Sin but it is more a Resurrection to Newness of Life Old habits are not easily destroyed yet must this be done and that by new habits of contrary Vertues the one and the other are works of time and constant industry they require the best of a man's powers and the assistance of greater We cannot be too frequently admonished that this is the great design of the Gospel that all our Lords Actions and Sermons Precepts and Promises Death and Resurrection relate to this as Enconragements and as Emblems and must be answered by the Duties they represent His Birth by our Regeneration his Circumcision by our putting off the sins of the flesh his Death by our mortifying our old man his Baptism and Burial by our spiritual burying deep our mortified Lusts and his Resurrection by our New and better Life Let the malicious take notice I deny not with the Socinians That Christ died to purchase Pardon for penitent sinners but I deny and all the Apostles deny it with me That any shall have benefit of his Purchace without participation of his Holiness Yea I may further add That the Apostles are more frequent in declaring that he redeemed us from the Dominion of sin than from its wages And our Church Catechism teacheth us that by Baptism is signified a death to sin and a new birth to righteousness whereby we are made members of Christ and this sure is no easy or short Work nor wrought in a small or busy Time It requireth a Chamber but a Council-Chamber not a sick man's The Psalmist prosseth it with a Selah Psal 4.6 Stand in awe and sin not commune with your own hearts and in your Chamber and be still Selah Here is a weighty Affair to be setled a long Account to be stated and a steddy Course to be stablished To this end a solemn Conference to be held all Parties heard all Objections debated all Pleas fully heard that final Sentence may be given between God and Sin Let therefore the Rabble be excluded all Noise supprest all Disturbances prevented And can no privater Chamber be had than the sick man's No other wherein to be still but that which of all other is most troublesome How many Diseases are there that make any Consult impracticable The Fever by its Fires the Lethargy by its Waters the Colick by its Gripes and most other Diseases by their proper Torments give the Patient business enough to employ his whole mind and if he can bear them he doth all that is possible for humane nature And those Diseases which do not utterly disable the mind do certainly disorder it If they do not make the Consult utterly Impossible yet they make it more Difficult than in the day of Health when all Faculties are free and all Powers entire yet shun the work as too hard to be undergone Let us now suppose the man so happy as to enjoy the concurse of all the circumstances of Death which without warrant he promised himself He dieth not a violent Death but in his Bed He is not deluded with vain hopes but knoweth his Disease to be mortal It is not a disabling Disease but a gentle lingering one which alloweth him full exercise of his faculties and he employeth them all in the work which through the whole course of his life he cut out for this time He is upon due consideration so sensible of his past Follies and present Danger as to be firmly resolved that if God be pleased to grant him longer life he will make it a new one no less industrious in his service than he hath formerly been in that of his lusts These are the weak and dying Man's Resolutions And whether they be not weak and dying like himself at another time may be questioned General Experience telleth us that the Resolution which is brought by fear departeth with it and the former Life returneth with the health of the sinner But this Danger since it hath no place in my Text shall have none in my Discourse but I pass by it to IV. The last but not least Danger is that God will not pardon the impenitent upon his late Repentance as he did Moses upon the late performance of his neglected Duty What hope there is for a wicked Man's repenting upon his Death-bed is a question more disputeable and more worth disputing than any yea than all of those wherein we weary our selves and think them most Learned that can speak most of them to no purpose Let me admonish and request you to be so kind to your selves as to allow some serious thoughts to this most important Question which you cannot study in vain and do not rashly take every thing for Orthodox that is Vulgar The Question is not concerning God's secret but his declared Will not

allowed 8 days respite but This by fixing no Future day maketh every day of Delay a day of Disobedience God be blessed there are not many who deny the duty to be necessary but too many who hope they may safely delay it And those hopes they build upon the unhappy Translation of the Greek word which importeth A Change for the future into a Latin one which signifieth only A Sorrow for what is past For thence men rashly if not wilfully infer that the Gospel promiseth pardon to every one that repenteth and That may be done at any time but never more seasonably than in the last scene of life when they shall have nothing else to do And what is this but a defiance to the Apostle's caution which the last time that I appeared in this place we heard him give the Galatians in these words Be not deceived God is not mocked for what a man soweth that shall be also reap I shall now repeat no more of what I then said but this That God hath established the same Rule for the other life as for this That the Harvest shall answer the Seed in Kind yet so as to multiply it but at some distance of time For there is one time to sow and another time to reap and in this spiritual husbandry the earliest season is alway the best for Two great Reasons First Because delay multiplieth Difficulties and Secondly Because it multiplieth Dangers 1. It multiplieth Difficulties because by repeated Acts the Habits will grow to a second Nature for so the Prophet declareth as little hope that those who are accustomed to do evil should learn to do well as there is that a Bluck-a-moor should change his skin or a Leopard his spots And as Difficulties encrease so do the Helps decay The Light of Conscience the Word preached and the Grace of God by frequent baffles lose their power and in time grieving the Spirit cometh to quenching the Spirit It is a dreadful Consideration That the day of Grace is shorter than the day of Life that there is a measure of iniquity beyond which God's Spirit will not strive with man but leave the Reprobate to his own ways wherein he must certainly perish This is lively set forth in the latter half of the first Chapter of the Proverbs of Solomon wherein Wisdom is personated first Wooing then Threatning and at last Deserting the obstinate and therefore perishing fool This brought us to the Frontier of the other Argument against Delay it multiplieth Dangers which it is my present business to survey taking our view from Moses's Case I. God sought not to slay Moses in the field but in his lodgings but we are not sure we shall die in our Beds II. Moses knew his danger but we know not when our disease is mortal III. When Moses was disabled his Wife acted his part but if our disease disable us from Repentance we cannot do it by Proxy IV. As soon as the Child was circumcised the destroying Angel left Moses in safety but we have no certainty that God will pardon us in consideration of a Death-bed Repentance I. THE first danger is That we may not die in our Bed and thereby have opportunity to repent What is there no other way to the Grave but from the Bed Or hast thou any Revelation that however many other ways there be and however many other men pass those other ways yet thou hast a particular protection against them What creature so Mean or so Weak as not to be able to destroy the Wisest and the Mightiest man Anacreon's Wit could not deliver him from a Grapestone nor Pope Adrian's triple Crown from a Fly nor Herod's joint Wit and Power from Worms Zeuxis was strangled with a fit of Laughter and many by a fit of Grief Wine engageth one Man in a Quarrel another in a Fever a third in a Ditch and others in other destructive Accidents How many every Year fall by some violent Death And what Year more fruitful than this in Apoplexies which have knocked down one in the Court where Laws are Made another in That where they are Executed one as he is about to sleep another when he is about to eat Sudden Deaths are almost daily of those who depended upon Death-bed-Repentance with as much confidence as any of us who survive perhaps to be made the like warnings to others From this slippery station let us view the fall In play we allow men to hazard so much as they may reasonably spend upon one pleasure but those who put their whole Livelyhood to the Mercy of a Die are Blamed though they prove Fortunate and Scorned if they be Ruined Yet have they as much Hope of Gain as Danger of Loss But the Impenitent staketh eternal Life against a Lust a Brutish Pleasure which is overpurchased at the much greater Loss of that which a vertuous man enjoys If it be pleaded that there is great odds against this danger because those who die in their Beds are many more than those who die otherwise we ought to reply that a man ought not to stake his All against Nothing though there were but one bad Chance in the Dice And we are further to consider that if we were secure from this yet there are other dangers For II. A second Danger is that if we die in our Beds we cannot Know and are loth to Believe that we must die by This Disease For on the contrary all our worldly Friends and spiritual Enemies combine with our own Self-love to flatter us The Physicians by their Art are obliged to fortifie their Patients Spirits the better if possible to resist the Disease and by the same rules all that come near him must speak Comfort or Nothing concerning his Condition So fondness for his ease tempts him to continue his Inveterate Practice of dismissing his Repentance to a more convenient season Yea so powerful is this fondness that it infatuateth those who have no hopes either to Escape their present sickness or to Continue any considerable time in it The Consumption which hath devoured all the inward and outward Flesh hath not consumed this Humour And in old men this Disease is no less incurable than the natural Infirmities of Age. No man saith Seneca is so old ut impiè alterum diem speret he may well hope to live some days longer and one of those days he will do the Work but for the present he cries with Solomon's Sluggard yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep and death cometh upon the one as want upon the other like a Traveller not Expected and an armed man not to be Resisted For the Bed cometh within that Petition in our Litany from sudden death good Lord deliver us the Death that surpriseth us unprepared is sudden in whatever circumstances it seizeth us whether in Bed or Field Nor can it now be pleaded as before That the odds is great in favour of the Impenitent