Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	jesus_n	life_n	sin_n	18,761	5	4.6811	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36854	A sermon preached in the metropolitical Church of Canterbury, October 17, MDCLXXII, at the funeral of the Very Reverend Thomas Turner, D.D., dean of the same church by Peter du Moulin ...	Du Moulin, Peter, 1601-1684.	1672 (1672)	Wing D2567; ESTC R10909	12,567	32

A SERMON Preached in the Metropolitical Church OF CANTERBURY October 17. MDCLXXII AT THE FUNERAL Of the very Reverend THOMAS TURNER D.D. Dean of the same Church By Peter du Moulin D.D. Canon there and One of His Majesties Chaplains LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in S. 〈◊〉 Church-Yard near the West End 1672. PHIL. 1.21 For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain THE Gospel is the onely Doctrine of true Wisdom and therefore the onely direction to true Happiness Thereby the Christian learneth to walk before his God unto all pleasing and charitably and uprightly with his Neighbours to instruct his ignorance and correct his perversness to stand fast erected and contented in the several turns of this World to live well and to die well which is all That sacred Doctrine is then most effectual to those great ends when it comes seconded by example and attested by experience Give me lessons like my text and the two before where the Teacher teacheth himself and sets forth his doctrine by his practice The good Apostle was in bonds in imminent peril of death And besides the persecution from Pagans he was maligned by false brethren who preached Christ out of contention not sincerely supposing to adde affliction to his bonds In that double trial see how the holy champion puts on the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation and takes in one hand the sword of the Spirit in the other the buckler of faith Vers 19. I know saith he that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ According to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed but that with all boldness as alwayes so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body whether it be by life or by death For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain or to make it more English Either way or rather both the ways Christ is a gain unto me both to live and to die Yet he had declared before and so he doth after that he held it a far greater gain for him to die for Christ and would rather glorify him by his death than life This was also the godly mind of our dear and highly honoured Dean in his last sickness especially So deep was the gaining of Christ in his pious soul that he could be sensible of no comfort but through death that he might gain Christ The mention of recovery did afflict him yea offend him I fear nothing so much would he say as to recover I long to be dissolved and to be with Christ That sentence was continually in his mouth That resolution was stedfastly fixt in his mind Did any speak to him of life and health and the comfort of his wife and children Away would he answer I have enjoyed all these long enough Christ I would have O when shall I be dissolved and be with Christ Much in the same stile as David As the hart panteth after the water-brooks Psal 42.1 so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before God One may tell me that I press the practice of my text before the doctrine But I will say for my self that in this text the practice is the leader of the doctrine Vnto me to live is Christ and to die is gain And to shew how Christ was a gain unto St. Paul and to those that are his followers as he also was of Christ it is the life of the text Yet because the doctrine is the pattern of the practice this is the kernel of the doctrine of the text and the order to be kept in the exposition Christ being sent unto men to be a gain unto them it is presupposed thereby that they are at a loss without him Mans natural losses are the deprivation of Gods knowledge in his understanding and of Gods righteousness in his will Whence follow heavy judgments upon him in his life and eternal woe after his death To help him in this sad condition The Son of God hath brought from the bosom of his Father unto mankind that heavenly doctrine of glory to God on high and on earth peace good will towards men Which being embraced with obedience of faith will prove such a gain unto him that those spiritual losses shall be repaired his temporal wants shall be supplied his afflictions shall be removed or so sanctified that they will prove lucrative unto him And Death that proper and dismal stipend of sin will prove unto him the greatest gain of all for instead of tumbling him down into hell it will powre him into the bosom of his Father which is in heaven that bottomless depth of goodness and glory Of which goodness and glory the summary is to be fully conformed in mans measure unto Christ his soveraine good and to be joined with him for ever To resume these consider a little what a wretched thing a man is that hath not learned Christ As for his understanding he is plunged in deep ignorance knowing neither God nor himself nor his danger nor his remedy Much like one who being fallen from a high place is so stunned with the fall that he knoweth not that he is fallen Carnal men are much like moles that dig under ground with great industry but are blind in the sunshine So naturally ignorant in the things of God that the wisest of this world the Philosophers were divided into more then two hundred opinions about the soveraine good And that the ingenious nations the Egyptians and Grecians were the most monstrous of all in their religions The Egyptians worshipping oxen and crocodiles onions and leeks The Grecians imagining in heaven feasts and combats and adulteries among their Gods And even in our days corrupt men have so intailed ignorance upon religion that we are taught by Popery that faith consisteth in ignorance which is a vertue easily attained Well to heal mens minds of ignorance in the things of God God hath sent his Son into the world 2 Tim. 1. who hath brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel Here is a gain indeed Mat. 13.46 Here is that pearl of great price which that a man may have he must sell all that he hath and buy it Prov. 3. Here is that wisedom the merchandise whereof is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof then fine gold She is more pretious then rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her The excellency of that gain is then made most manifest when from the illuminating of our understanding it passeth to the regulating of our affections and the sanctifying of our hearts Christ enabling our spirits freely to join with his Spirit to subdue all our inward rebellions and bringing them captives under the throne of Christ say unto him Lord rule

thou in the midst of thine enemies Is not liberty a great gain to a slave and a prisoner To a man that served his lust his belly his money his revengeful mind and the Devil by them what a gain is it by serving God to become Master at home to feel in his breast instead of a storm of unruly passions the peace of God which passeth all understanding and to find to his great comfort that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty What a great gain is it to be made rich in good works rich in God What a great gain is it for us to give those goods which we cannot keep and thereby to purchase goods which we cannot loose To sow upon earth that which we shall be sure to reap in heaven To put out our money to Gods bank who will repay it an hundred fold And how great a gain is the practice of godliness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Godliness is a great gain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with sufficiency A great gain which brings along sufficiency and contentment for so the text must be understood Of that many a good soul could say much by feeling experience For although the great gain of godliness be not for this world as the kingdom of Christ is not of it Yet Christ who is the Sovereign Lord of nature as well as King of the Church engageth his Royal word that all that serve him and sincerely seek his glory shall not need to say What shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed because their heavenly Father knoweth that they have need of all these things Mat. 6.33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you This is the Charter of Christs Disciples that they may confidently cast their cares upon him for he careth for them and so forsake all interesses to follow him But this is the least gain that we get by Christ in this life The great gain is the beginning of eternal life For the spiritual life in a godly mans breast is of one piece with life everlasting after the temporal is ended To have at hand the directions of his word the counsels of his Spirit the comforts of his love the joyes of his salvation To have a free access unto the throne of grace at all times To make one already in the quire of Angels and Saints singing with them Holy Holy Holy Lord God of hosts heaven and earth is full of the Majesty of his glory To be joyful in hope looking up unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith who went up through the rough way of the Cross to glory to make us a plain way to the same This is the gain that comes to us even in this life by having Christ Join to these the comforts that we relish in all conditions Is it prosperity the true Christian takes it as an effect of Gods promise which was made good to this reverend godly Divine that by humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honour and life Pro. 22.4 and that godliness is profitable for all things having the promises of this life and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 In every morsel he will relish how the Lord is gracious In his health in his wealth in his hopeful family he will ever look more to the giver than to the gift and adore him in whom he liveth and moveth and hath his being and his well being Is he in adversity He will say I know whom I have believed God hath a hand in all this Psal 39. I will be dumb and not open my mouth to murmur for thou O Lord hast done it My cross is my Saviours livery My humble conformity to his sufferings will end in a conformity to his glory if I may have the same mind which was also in Christ Jesus who humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name Now that gain which we have by Christ in this life is but a preparative to that grand and unmatchable gain in Christ which his true Disciples attain unto by death Christ is a gain unto them to die two ways by avoyding the sting and the terrours of death and by a passage unto an eternal life of holiness and glory The sting and terrour of approaching death is most tormenting to those that have taken no pains to make Christ the gain of their life What a cutting of their heart is it when they have fixt it upon the beloved world and they must be violently torn off from the world Linquenda tellus domus placens uxor And of all the wealth which they have heapt up with anxious care and wicked labour they see they carry nothing away but a winding sheet But the worst sting of death is that which they feel in their conscience when it sets before them the years spent in deboish the unrighteousness of their purchases their contempt of Gods word their slighting of his service their blasphemous and unclean conversation and upon that pronounceth unto them as Gods Officer the doom of divine justice which must be shortly executed upon them It is true many of those sinners in grain die senseless Yet before their death the sting of eternal death meets with their consciences even in the midst of their jollities And many sinners of a lower form feel it all their lives time To heal consciences of that sting was the great end of the Son of God's coming and dying in our flesh As you have it illustriously set forth Heb. 2.14 That Christ took part of flesh and blood that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil And deliver them who through fear of death are all their lives time subject unto bondage This is the great remedy against that mortal sting of death sent by the Father of mercies to poor sinners A never sading remedy when sinners have the grace to receive it with a sincere faith effectual in an humble repentance and a serious amendment For then the soul reconciled with God looks upon death with quite another eye then before and saith O death where is thy sting Rom. 7. O grave where is thy victory Death do not look grim upon me I know who hath overcome thee Conscience do not think to fright me I know whom I have believed I have committed my spirit assoiled with Christs blood into his victorious hands And I know he is both willing and powerful to defend it against all the principalities and powers of hell that are roaring about me to devour me After that deliverance from the sting and the terrour of death followeth the attainment of eternal life and death it self is the passage unto it There is that difference between