Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	great_a	life_n	love_n	7,775	5	5.2746	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46806	Exodus, or, The decease of holy men and ministers consider'd in the nature, certainty, causes, and improvement thereof : a sermon preach't Sept. 12. 1675 : by occasion of the much lamented death of that learned and reverend minister of Christ, Dr. Lazarus Seaman ...	Jenkyn, William, 1613-1685.	1675 (1675)	Wing J638; ESTC R18544	27,881	62

and in that upon the flesh and Blood of Christ They differ in their Apparel Saints put on the Lord Jesus his righteousness as imputed and his grace and holiness as imparted to them but the wicked are clothed only with the defiled and defective rags of their own righteousness and the deformities of the old man and corruption 2. When the Israelites departed from Egypt their Exodus or departure was e terra afflictionis as 't is call'd Gen. 41.52 from a troublesome and afflicting Country therefore Scripture frequently speaks concerning their afflictions in Egypt Exod. 3.7 their being bond-men in Egypt Deut. 6.21 concerning the murther of their Infants in Egypt concerning their iron furnace in Egypt Dent. 4.20 called an iron-furnace because much imployment of the Israelites was spent in the melting and mollifying of iron which doubtless was the sorest and hottest work and a little before they went away their bricks were doubled their burthens were increased in one word the Egyptian cruelties were extended to the very highest pitch of extremity And when the people of God go out of the world is not their Exodus their departure from an Egypt too in this regard It is a troublesome hating persecuting world that they depart from Mundus turbatur amatur the world is troubled and troublesome saith Austin yet too much lov'd and God makes the place of our distance from heaven an house of bondage and trouble lest we should make it the place of our delight 'T is better for Gods Israel that Egypt should be a house of bondage than hospitality and God will have his people afflicted in it that they may not be infected with it and say it is good for us to be here When the people of Israel were coming into Egypt how kindly did Pharaoh entertain them how welcome were they to the Egyptians but when they went out from thence how were they persecuted When the people of God are looking towards the world and seeming to comply with it then they shall be respected but when they will leave it in their deportment and practice then they are hated 'T is good that Egyptians should hate Israel that they may not hurt them When the world is most kind 't is most corrupting and when it smiles most it seduceth most Were it not for the bondage of Egypt we should too much delight in the Idols and Onyons of Egypt 3. When the Israelites departed out of Egypt they departed e terra pro●●ana out of a wicked idolatrous sinful Country therefore you so often read concerning the idols of the Egyptians the gods of the Egyptians Jer. 43.12 Jer. 46.25 and particularly you have mention made Josh 24.14 concerning the people of Israel their serving the gods of the Egyptians which doubtless they did too frequently when they were amongst them so you read concerning the whoredoms of Egypt Ezek. 23.8 And is not this as the world that we are leaving the Egppt from which we are departing when we are dying The whole world says the Apostle lies in wickedness like a Swine in the midst of the mire wallowing and tumbling immersed in all kind of lewdness and profaneness and it is called therefore this present evil World Gal. 1.4 And the truth is the people of God while here they abide are too ready in this Egypt to learn the Language and imitate the sinful practises of Egypt Water though never so pure running through a Brimstony or Allomy Myne will have something of the savour tang and tast of it And the people of God as frequently we see and should sadly observe although they are holy purified and cleansed yet running through the Myne of a sinful profane World have too great a tang and savour of its Impiety I doubt not but the people of Israel learned their Idolatry of worshipping the golden Calf of the Egyptians who worshipped such Idols Thus you see from whence the Exodus or departure of the Israelites was it was from Egypt that carries too great a resemblance to the World which the Saints leave when they die 2dly What was the way of the Israelites departing out of Egypt It was through a red-Sea a kind of living-living-death in appearance or sepulcher wherein they expected every moment to be swallowed up Pharaoh also pursuing of them And the people of God must pass to life sometimes through a red-Sea of Persecution and Bloud as this great Apostle Peter did according to the prediction that he had from Jesus Joh. 21.18 but always they must pass to life through death there is no going any other way till the fetters of the body be knockt off the Soul cannot get up to God Death must be the threshold of Life we must be absent from the body before we can be present with the Lord. This is as the way of sins merit so of Gods method He writes death upon all things and persons before he enlivens and raiseth them Nor is the passage of the Saints through the red-Sea of Death without a pursuing Pharaoh the Devil with his Army of Tentations who will ever disturb where he cannot destroy and pursue though he cannot prevail But blessed be Christ who not only disappoints but destroys the destroyer 3dly To what Countrey did they design to go when they departed out of Egypt 'T was to the Land of Canaan thither they were tending and marching And so likewise do the People of God when they leave this Egypt they go to a better Land of Canaan than that which is earthly a Heavenly Countrey an heavenly Canaan though shadowed out and typified by the earthly I shall open it to you in three particulars 1. The Land of Canaan was Terra Promissa it was a Promised Land therefore Neh. 9.15 it is there called the Land which God both promised and sware to give the Israelites Their only Title to it was by Promise God ow'd it to them no further than he had promised it to them And the heavenly Canaan to which the dying Saints do go is also a Land of Promise 1 John 2.25 This is the promise that he hath promised Eternal life A Promise is a middle thing between Purpose and Performance first there is the Purpose of God to save his People his eternal Decree then he promises it in the Gospel then performs it after Death and so great is the Love of God to a true Israelite an Israelite indeed that he will not stay till the day of performance comes but shews his Love in promising before the time of performance And hence you read of the promise of eternal Life 2 Tim. 1.1 Heb. 9.15 the promise of the eternal Inheritance and the Saints called the heirs of Promise and hereby God both honours his own faithfulness in his peoples trusting him for Heaven and tries his Saints sincerity who embrace Gods Promises before the Worlds Performances and the Riches of the people of God on this side Heaven lies in this great Promise of Heaven A Saint that

to faithful men saith Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 2.2 Upon which words Reverend Calvin well notes Here the Apostle shews Quantum sit solicitus de propaganda sana doctrina ad posteros His sollicitousness to propagate sound Doctrine to Posterity and that the Servant of Christ must not only quamdiu vivit while he lives labour to preserve the purity of Doctrine sed quam longissime ejus cura studiam se extendere poterit as far as ever his care and study should be able to extend The like some Learned men have observed upon 1 Tim. 6.14 Keep this Commandment without spot and unrebukable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ No faithful Servant of Christ is willing that the fruit of his Endowments or Employments should die with him but that they may live when he is dead for the furthering your Salvation that Instructions may abide with you to inform you Exhortations to quicken you Examples if holy to be imitated by you his sufferings for the Truth to strengthen and confirm you in the Truth thereby sealed And this is their Duty First That thereby they may keep up the name of God and promote his glory in the World This we should desire may be done after our death yea by it It was excellent Counsel of Luther Disce mori ut vivat Christi gloria Learn to die that the glory of Christ may live If Christ may increase by or after our decrease our very diminution should be our Option whatever makes Christ great should please us The end of living or dying is Gods glory if living or dying we are the Lords our living and dying should be to the Lord we should serve our generation that the generations after us may serve him 2. Hereby the Servants of God best provide for their own names 'T is this that makes our names to be a sweet Perfume to Posterity and gives them as much of Eternity as in this World they are capable of obtaining The rotting of the name is a wicked mans Curse and the preservation of our memories by doing good is both a Duty and a Blessing As an useless unserviceable person is dead while he lives so service is that that makes us live when we are dead and makes the places where we lived like the Civet-box when the Civet is taken out of it to savour of our holy Endeavours when we our selves are gone from and out of them 3. Thirdly Love to Souls makes this a Duty Regard to these must be lengthened beyond the length of our lives A Servant of Christ must do good to as many as he can 'T is both his duty and disposition Paul tells us the design of all his condescensions was that he might gain the more 1 Cor. 9.19 No godly man needs or wishes to make a Monopoly of Heaven Every Saint loves Company to Glory he loves to be saved surely but not solitarily 'T is this that should be the great motive to writing to benefit others after our decease The Pen hath as one speaks the greatest Auditories and the advantage of levening Posterity with Holiness and it hath given the deepest wounds to Antichrist and been the best Antidote against Heresies 'T is a holy Covetousness to crave the saving of many both while we live and after death Besides this is a kind of countermining of Satan who after the death of able Instruments labours most to pervert the Truth and to subvert Souls After my departure saith Paul Acts 20.29 grievous Wolves shall enter in among you not sparing the flock 4. Fourthly The best in their life-time have done too little for the good of Souls How small is the number of those we have brought to Heaven compared with those that for ought we know we have undone for ever by our sinful Examples and other encouragements to sin There may be several that shall be saved who have occasioned the damnation of others by their sinful and scandalous carriages The colder the Winter hath been the hotter say some the Summer is like to be so the more benummed and frozen our endeavours for saving of Souls have been formerly the hotter should our Divine Zeal be afterwards to save them Never did a bad man do more against Christ than Paul did before his Conversion but never did a good man do more for him than Paul did afterwards I would to God saith he that all that hear me were such as I am As much as in me is Rom. 1.15 I will preach the Gospel I will gladly spend and be spent 2 Cor. 12.15 The grace of God was exceeding abundant in that faith and love 1 Tim. 1.14 which answered the former to his infidelity the latter to his persecution 5. Fifthly The reward that godly men and Prophets expect is Everlasting It shall last longer than their longest usefulness can do their Crown shall never fade away Why then should their helpfulness to Souls be short upon earth since their happiness in Heaven shall be perpetual And 't is the opinion of some That the Saints in Heaven have an addition made to their happiness there by the Conversion of every Soul that is converted by their means after their departure 6. Lastly In some regards they may do good to Souls after their decease with less disadvantage than they could while living upon earth for while here they lived their bodily presence and speech was weak and contemptible their outward man their constant familiar Converse with a people made them the more neglected But these hinderances after death are removed people then being ready to entertain more honourable thoughts of them than when they lived Every advantage for doing good should be embraced The higher thoughts any have of us the higher thoughts we should labour that thereby they may have of Christ Paul his bodily presence was despicable but how greatly have his labours benefited Posterity 1. For the Use of this Point 1. Heinous is the impiety of those who so live that they do more hurt to Souls after their death than ever they did while they lived whose practical immoralities and heretical opinions being transmitted to posterity prove its bane and poyson I might instance in Arrius Pelagius Socinus Arminius and other Innovators who by their Writings have perverted more since they left the world than ever they did by their tongues while they were in it and what rebuke I give to Heterodox Writings is as due to those Heterodox by some so called Practices of impiety wherewith men are destructive to those who follow their Examples in after-ages Our practices while we live should be so holy and exemplary that when we dye we may not be asham'd to say we desire that after our decease these things may be remembred Who ever heard of any impure Sensualist or any infamous for immoralities to be so senslesly impudent as to say Let posterity have these things always in remembrance for by the same reason that they desire to hide their impieties

shall a while consider this worthy man as concerned in his Pastoral Employment and capacity And here First I present him to you as a most excellent and profound Casuist And indeed his great Skill in Casuistical Divinity was by some esteemed the Master-piece of his Learning and I knew none more eminent therein than was Doctor Seaman in regard whereof our loss of such an useful man is much to be lamented for one of the greatest defects of Theological Writers is commonly thought to be that of Casuists though the usefulness of Casuistical Divines be as great as their rarity both for directing and easing of Conscience a thing little regarded in these dayes of Latitudinarianism O uncouth and till of late unheard-of word how it sounds horrid to the ears of Pious Grammarians giving too much ease to Practice but too little to Pronunciation And I much doubt or rather doubt not at all whether any Divine in London was so much sought unto for resolving of difficult cases as was Doctor Seaman who for his abilities herein was famous to my knowledg above thirty years ago and since that time how great proficiency a person of his parts and industry might and did make in that noble Piece of Theology for the tallest in that part of Learning may grow taller any may easily conceive and none I am confident so happily understood as you that enjoy'd the benefit of his constant Preaching Secondly Further as to his Pastoral Office he was a Person most able and dextrous in the expounding of Scripture one that could as well reach and fathom the difficult places thereof as any I ever heard either in a Pulpit or private discourse He was an Interpreter I may truly say one of a thousand and one that could give the mind of the holy Ghost with much clearness and perspicuity Of this you that are now my mournful and of late his delighted Hearers can give as sundry of you of late have given me the best and most satisfactory account being so experimentally acquainted with the Truth I now utter which I the rather believe because in the mentioning thereof I move so much sorrow which I see vents it self by your weeping-eyes Nor can I blame your sorrows For to lose such an enlightning Doctor is as 't was once said of the loss of Chrysostom to part with the Sun out of the Firmament Methinks I hear you answering to Philip's question and in the Eunuch's words Acts 8.31 How can we understand unless some man should guide us To lose such a Doctor is to lose if not your sight yet your Seer the Lord preserve and increase the former and restore the latter in a Succession Doctor Seamans Sermons were not like some Buildings especially of old that have small and ill-contrived Lights his Doctrinal Light being the great beauty of his Sermons though in those excellent structures there was care enough taken for the Chimney too I mean to give the warmth of Application also How easie did he render the most difficult Scriptures so breaking the hardest shell of the Letter that with greatest pleasure you might tast the sweetness of the Kernel in the sense Thirdly As a Pastor he was a most Orthodox Divine and sound in the faith And I look upon this as his high Commendation in the capacity of a Minister And this his excellent discourses of Justification Faith and the Covenant of Grace which were the subjects of his dying Labours here in this place eminently declare and testifie And 't is my earnest Request if there be any of you that have had the ability of taking those Discourses from him so exactly that the publication of them will not be too injurious to the Doctors accurateness That you would gratifie the World with such a blessing And by so much the greater was his commendableness for Orthodoxy by how much the more Heterodoxy in these dayes abounds as if we were fallen at once into the sinks of Time and Heresie What a company of uncatechized Vpstarts do we now behold venting as confidently their heretical Notions in opposition to our famous English Divines as if Jewel Whitaker Davenant Downam Renolds Abbot Vsher c. were by them to be degraded to School-boyes and to sit at their feet to reap the blessing of their heads yea as if to the Doctrine of the Church of England subversion had been intended when subscription was performed nay as if Scripture it self were to be Hector'd down by their malapert and saucy ignorance Nor do I with so much holy I hope indignation mention this young brood of Theologues to express the great disparity between their and Doctor Seaman's Scholastical Abilities Oh what poor shrubs are these to this till death fell'd him lofty Cedar as to congratulate the happiness of this age in enjoying the excellent Labours those poyson-expelling Antidotes of Mr. Polhil and Antisozzo the Antagonist to the latter of which worthy pair of Writers I must needs commend though not for his Learning yet for his Prudence who passeth over with a childish scoff instead of a scholastical Confutation a Book that he is no more able rationally to answer than to eat the paper of the whole impression But for the present I dismiss the Trifler He may possibly be call'd for again hereafter in another way if better Employment hinder not Fourthly He was as to his Pastoral station a richly furnish't Divine with all materials of Didactical and Practical Divinity he was such a Promptuary of all provisions for the relief of Souls as that I may truly say he was a Scribe instructed to the Kingdom of Heaven like unto a man that is an housholder that bringeth out of his treasure things new and old I may justly say of him That he was as 't was once said of another an Ocean of Theology And he had so throughly digested the whole body of Divinity that he could upon all occasions discourse upon any Point without labour and needed as little to be beholding to others for helping him to matter for his Sermons as did any the most richly accomplished Preacher with whom I ever was as yet acquainted He was one that could draw out of his richly stored Self whatever was needful to draw forth to others How unlike in this respect to those empty and unaccomplish'd Predicants who Preach the Sermons of their Non-conforming Predecessors upon which yet I should not have reflected though losers may have leave to speak did they not also reproach our persons when they Preach to say no worse our Sermons they practising that in publick which they deride when done in private I mean repetition of Sermons And as our Doctor was so fully accomplish'd in carrying about with him or rather in being a living Body of Divinity so was it his happiness and as much his people's that he did both fluently and yet rationally deliver his notions without the least impedition or hesitation he being in this regard not only a Scribe