Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	heaven_n	life_n	live_v	8,611	5	5.4859	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84131	An elegiacall commemoration of the pious life, and most lamented death, and funerals, of Mr. Josiah Shute, rector of the parish, of St. Mary Woolnoth in Lombard-Street. Who left us on the 13 of June. 1643.		1643 (1643)	Wing E337; Thomason E75_1; ESTC R21939	10,148	24

when I have enquired after and call'd together all his worth my Reader want faith to goe along with me further Let us therefore descend quickly to his declining and we shall finde an evening becomming such a day glorious even in his Sun-set Nor could we look for any other Catastrophe at the last Scene when all the rest of his life was so well Acted He lived 55 yeares to learn how to dye well for indeed his whole Age was no otherwise imployed At last Nature being over-wrought groaned under many Infirmities which with cheerefulnesse he a great while passed over till Death which would not be deferr'd further and Heaven which would no longer be without this Guest agreed together to summon him by a swouning Fit which as soone as he had retired out of his Pulpit into his Chamber suspended his spirits and had throwne him on the ground had not a luckie friend whose fortune it was to close his eyes at last then by chance rescued him from the Fall After this his Disease pursued him so close that it took him from his profession and this hee accounted Death even before Death to be forc't from his Pulpit where he would willingly have expired his soule being then nearer and on its way to heaven But Blessed Man thou mad'st thy Bed thy Pulpit and finding thy Soule upon her Wing thou didst almost after thy usuall Method betake thy selfe to thy Text which was that commanding Monosyllable Death Yet before thou didst enter upon it thou didst prepare thy few and happie Auditors by a most devout and patheticall Prayer wherein all the world was beholding to thy extensive Charitie And may thy bleeding Countrie thy disquieted Prince thy divided Brethren thy melancholy Friends and even thy peevish enemies feele those Blessings which in thy last words thou didst beg for them When thou hadst as if thou didst intend them as so many Legacies summ'd up all things which are necessary for us Thou didst bequeath thy selfe into those hands that made thee and suddenly after didst fall asleepe He that shall with a contemplative soule observe all this and yet want a Sermon to teach him how to dye well when Reverend SHUTE now very near a Saint preacheth from his Death-bed to him will hardly be brought to a true sense of saving Mortification should his blessed Angell descend and bring down instructions more immediately from GODS Mouth how he might dye to live immortallie Nor did this Man of God goe to his Grave with meane Funerals he had more true Mourners then followed the Hearse of a departed Prince Such put on an affected griefe with their dissembling blacks and at these stately Obsequies there is no circumstance which is like Sorrow but a counterfeit Solemnitie when as there wanted no Pageants of Mortality nor borrowed sadnesse to attend him to the house of Death In his Melancholy Traine which was made up of thousands besides his drooping Kindred it was hard to finde out a dry eye or a face wherein griefe did not apparently shew it selfe The Nobility and Gentry could not command their Teares or were willing to bestow that last gatefull showre in acknowledgement of those many blessings they owed him for The dejected Clergie hung downe their heads as if they had lost the credit of their Profession His sad Parishioners who for so many yeares had received the bread of life by his faithfull Ministerie looked pale and disconsolate as though they had feared a succeeding Famine And the rest of the weeping croud who had heretofore gathered up whilest he shook the Tree of Life to all that came by their Laments and Peales of sighes did witnesse that they had soules sensible of the injuries which death had done them by taking away him who alwayes stood Sentinell for all his Auditors and gave them a timely Alarum against the surprizals of their Arch-Enemy the Devill Mr. Vdall that preached his Funerall Sermon Well then might his Learned Friend have spared his Funerall Lectnre for there were no eyes present which needed pumping no hearts which were not already melted at this Buriall of their Favourite But his words were Cordiall to us when he excellently shewed how He had fought a good fight finished The Text at his Funerall his course and kept the faith and was gone to receive that Crowne of Righteousnesse which the Lord the righteous Judge had laid up for him Let us therefore wipe our eyes seeing we are so well assured of his happinesse lest we seeme to envie him his blessed repose and the reward of his righteousnesse which we have reason to hope is as certaine as that the Almighty is mercifull and that he hath prepared heaven for a Kingdome and immortality for a Crowne for all those that have fought a good fight c. Yet 't is said there want not those that dare more then doubt of his soules blisse Oh desparate uncharitablenesse even against their own selves If our God be so severe that thy well-drest soule which never went without its true Wedding-garment cannot be admitted what shall become of those who have nothing but rags of vanity and patches of pretended zeale to cloath their sinfull nakednesse O my God if there be no roome in Heaven for this good this vigilant Shepherd where shall his poore weak flock be folded when we are driven out of this life Is not the Gate of Blessednesse narrow enough but must wretched man streighten it yet farther If so much so pure Piety cannot enter how shall prophanenesse and accumulated sin struggle through That forward Intruder that will make himselfe of Gods Jurie and dares presumptuously condemne the Just and Innocent passeth a sure sentence against his own soule But Heaven and Earth whose Darling he alwayes was have lifted him above the reach of their violent malice And whilest God and Men having now divided him betwixt them shall take care the one of his Soule the other of his Fame and shall eternize him in the Register of the Saints the memory of these dregs of men who are professed enemies even to Mortality to Learning Vertue Piety almost to all those true and essentiall parts of Charity and Religion shall be odious to Posterity to which they have help'd to give a wound by their furious and unlimited zeale and practises which will be beyond the cure either of Time or Policy Yet even for these Malignant Spirits his Soule left a blessing whilest he begd of the Almighty whither he was about to goe to enlighten and amend their bloodshed eyes and to pardon their wilfull and malitious Blindnesse Thus instead of repaying the Gall of his Detractors with Bitternesse he tooke them into his Prayers and so sacrificed for their sin a benefit bestowed upon them against their will and merit Come hither then all ye that have any aime at heaven and set your selves to study the life and death of this holy man what we cannot performe by his precepts and passed Instructions let us reach at by his example and imitation Thus he may live with us in despight of Death and preach saving Doctrines though himselfe be for ever silenced Thus every pious bosome may make it selfe his Tombe which being adorned with any resemblance of his better part will more fully evidence his worth then a speaking marble whose partiall Inscrptions doe most times flatter their dead guests and are therefore justly suspected as no more then a Funerall Complement Yet it were both pity and ingratitude should that silver Trumpet which hath so often awakened us from our sinfull Lethargies be be now hudled up in common dust without some little memoriall where it is laid up Go on then and doe you whose soules were above thirty yeates obliged to him deliver him over to Posterity in your intended Monument That when aged Time hath worne out all those who have been witnesses of his matchlesse parts and Piety the stones may tell his happy story by offering this Epitaph to every Reader Here lies c.

methinks to fright away a sinfull Thought Devotion hovered about Him when He was addressing Himselfe to pray and his whole gesture kindled a warme Zeale even in a frozen Bosome Whilest his petitioning words fell from Him they begate penitent sighes in those which joyned with Him to witnesse that their Hearts breathed out the same requests All his Ejaculations were the sober dictates of the spirit they were not fiery and sudden raptures hudled up conceived and born in a hasty minute his Zeale though fervent was modestly ordered considering to whom he spake nor did He on the otherside tye himself to a few set words as if the Almighty were to be appeased with spels but his well-fitted Petitions varied as oft as any occasions offered themselves and when Hee had as it were prepared the attentive Soule by prayer and begg'd a blessing upon His houres discourse hee so chearefully so solemnly addressed himselfe to the worke of a holy Orator that Hee presently had possession of our Eyes Eares and Hearts He seldome unlesse some proper occasiou call'd for it varied His Text or leapt from place to place to start a new Subject He commonly pursued one piece of Scripture with such learned perspicuity such a pious pleasancy and did so heighten our religious appetites that we were sorry for the parting Sands and long'd for the next houre to finish that which to day perhaps he did only cut out or divide for another dayes exercize In His delivery He was neither affected nor loose having such a command of his tongue and voice that he could handsomely fit them for every subject At a Funerall He pleaded so mortifyingly in the behalfe of Death that He made some desirous not to live others to live better nor did any returne from Him without a beneficiall conviction of their owne Mortality So pathetically would He solemnize the passion of our Saviour that his hearers might well laugh at the superstition of a Crucifix which only reacheth the gazers eye or but slightly toucheth the abused soule when as He imprinted in every heart Christ crucified by representing every circumstance of His Passion so to the life as if He were bleeding a fresh and were againe stabb'd and wounded by us that were His sinfull Auditory By these meanes He became Master of our consciences which stood in awe of His words and were powerfully subdued to his saving Doctrines Nor did He administer sharp things only He had Balme for the broken and contrite heart soft and gentle perswasions to win a trembling soule He never denounced judgement but his eyes were big with Teares He was none of those Thundereres who represent GOD in all his terrible Attributes and shaddow over his Mercy and Compassion He rather allured then terrified a straying conscience and rather endeavoured to bring it home to the Fold then drive it further from safety And though He did dresse Divinitie with all the winning advantages and pious allurements of spirituall Rhetorick though the words He cloathed it in were imbroadered with all the flowers of Learning with golden Sentences and precious Meditations which did cath the attention of every Auditor Yet this Kings Daughter for so is the word well preached was all glorious within the matter which was the in-side was rich and substantiall The weakest Capacity went along with Him understandingly all the way so well did He comply with the meanest hearer The more delicate apprehension of the Nobility and Gentry which were still part of that Religious Throng was so advisedly suited that He did as it were court them from their sins and by a holy Insinuation did even steale into their Bosomes and so powerfully convince them of their vanities that they alwayes carried home with them new resolutions And the most Sober the most Learned Persons for some such were almost alwayes a part of this Auditory discovered in every Sermon such a digestion of generall Learning so many full expressions of a Scholar of a sound Preacher of a Holy man that they could even have kissed the Pulpit in approbation of those blessed Truths sent down from it There might you see the graver Divines willing to improve their Knowledge and their Piety by that Summary of Divinitie which might be found in every dayes Lecture And there might be seene the Young-men of the Cassock lately set up in their Trade for Soules inabling themselves for their sacred Imployment so attentively fixing their whole selves on Him as if they had a designe to assimilate themselves to every excellency of His. One eyeing Him as if he were learning to put on his Reverend Gesture which gave Life to all that fell from him the other how to borrow his unaffected Art and facility of utterance another how to weave his reading and his meditation with such cunning and advantage another curiously observing his Method with a purpose to contrive his after labours by so rare a Modell Thus He was a President for all men yet was there such a mixture of Grave Humility in all these Perfections as if He only had beene ignorant of them And wonder not that this Towre of David made so faire a shew and had so many swelling eminencies for He had a Foundation large and sure Grace laid the first stone and Perseverance built upon it a connexion of Piety and Good-works was the Morter or Ciment Faith was the Buttresse that kept it upright and stedfast the Holy Spirit was the Master-workman by whose active influence every thing was disposed Nature lent all her aides to make the worke perfect for as so many Labourers whose proper imployments were herein necessary she lent an open Capacitie a retentive Memorie a searching wit a trying Judgement And here were all those servants of Art which make the super-structure as indefatigable Industry inquisitive Studie curious Observation satisfying Experience and the usefull extractions of Bookes and Antiquities Let it then be the boast of others that they are able to performe the most sacred and mysterious office of the Ministery without being much beholding to Learning that necessary Hand-maide to divine Knowledge whilest we pitie and laugh at the cunning Ignorance of these zealous Drones It will be a worthy addition to his lasting Fame that He was not contented to make himselfe intimate with the whole Scripture and have every Text readie to refute an Adversarie or convince a Sinner but He did run over the whole Bodie of Learning sipping from every part of it as from so many flowers some serviceable notions which being by his holy Art digested as by the subtile Chymestrie of the Bee help'd to make up that Honey those sweet and cordiall Lectures with which He frequently entertained us He read the Bible in that Originall language in which those happie Secretaries to the Holy Ghost penned it that he might be the more familiar with the true intentions of every word and expression of it making himselfe acquainted with the learned Languages because he would look back