Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	know_v	life_n	world_n	7,489	5	4.6442	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B03334	A sermon preach'd August the 4th 1700. On Psalm cxlvi. vers. 3, 4, 5 ... / by W. Fleetwood ...	Fleetwood, William, 1656-1723.	1700 (1700)	Wing F1257A; ESTC R177124	11,165	16

give us back that dear inestimable Life we have so lately parted with but that we think he signifies his Will and Pleasure to us by the known stated Course of Nature and know we have no reason to look for Miracles Death would not give us such Despair immediately but that we measure the Power of God by the common Exercise of it in the World And so 't is with putting our trust in him when we carry it no farther then he gives us leave by his common Rules or by particular Promise When therefore the Psalmist would invite us to hope in God and put our trust in him he would not have us raise in our selves Expectations of things strangely unusual and unlikely nor to believe that God will do for us or bring to pass whatever we expect or wish for or what we think we want But we may hope and trust in him for every thing that is in it self reasonable and fit for him to give and for us to receive Our Passions often put us upon asking what is not in it self very reasonable to expect no matter provided it be nothing wicked and forbidden and nothing to the Prejudice and Injury of any one else Our Parents and our Friends live here even beyond the common term of humane Life and we yet desire of God they may continue longer with us and we may hope that he will hear our Prayers This does not seem very reasonable when we consider the Life of Man and call to mind the years that are past and observe how it has always been with other People But yet 't is very innocent and lawful so to do because we know of no set term of days beyond which none shall pass that is still in the hands of God and because the protracting of that Life is to us we think of use and to do no ones wrong The Child is dying there of a malignant Feaver a Train as it were of liquid Fire is running through its Veins and burning up the Life that has been the desire of I know not how many years past and the hopes of I know not how many more to come the Parents pray to God in earnest you may be sure and put their trust in him and hope he will extinguish this unnatural Flame and this they do when Remedies are ineffectual Physicians found of no value and every thing about them bids them give it up for lost The thing they ask is lawful the time is not too late the work is not impossible in Nature and God is the Master of all The Event alone could declare whether it were not fit for God to give this Life or for the Parents to receive it Their Confidence in God was well plac'd altho' their Hopes and Desires were disappointed If Reasons were to be sought for in such cases out of or beyond what natural Causes teach us we may be sure that God denies us with as much Reason as he gives us what we ask We must not therefore think our hopes were wrong placed and our confidence in God ill-grounded and our prayers in vain because we receive not what we ask so earnestly because it is the power and Goodness of God which justifies our hope and trust in him and which encourages us to pray and this his Power is not diminish'd by our Disappointment nor is his Goodness the less in his not granting what we thought not He convenient for us It is impossible as I have before said to pray to God without believing him kind to intend our good wise to discern what is our good and powerful to procure it These are the very Reasons of Prayer and the Motives of addressing to God for what we think we want And these are the Foundations of all our Hope and Confidence in him And yet these are the very Reasons why our Prayers may not be heard and our Hope 's not answer'd and yet God be still as merciful and good intention'd towards us as when he grants our Requests We suppose him good to intend our Happiness he may therefore be good in with-holding from us what we think is good for us but is not We suppose him to be all wise and therefore refer it to him to choose for us How do we know he does not exercise his great Discernment in refusing to us what we think is good for us but what he knows is not Shall we only think he judges right when he judges as we judge and measure out his Wisdom by our Affections and Desires If we believe him wise enough to choose for us the same Reason will shew him full as wise in his refusing what we ask of him yes and full as kind too if we would believe that it is good for us to have which he gives and that not good all things consider'd which he witholds from us But the Misfortune is that we measure good by our own Affections and Desires that is good we think which we seem to want and to set our Hearts upon and nothing else can satisfie Let your Father be 70 years of Age and your Child 7 the first a wise and virtuous Man a Life that is necessary to you and useful to the Common-wealth and all that are about him the other as the rest of Children are hopeful enough If some Distemper put these two Lives into equal Danger you will do what you can for both and you will pray for them both and trust in God for both their health and Safety But both of them die and Nature swallows up the Concern for the Parent in the Grief for the Child and because the biass of Affection is strongest on that side our Hope and Confidence seem more defeated and our Prayers we think less heard in the one Case than the other 'T is plain we consider not the usefulness of the aged Life the continuance of which was certainly the greater good in respect of the dearness of that little Life which yet we could not tell what it might prove These things shew us a little that we are govern'd more by our Affections than our Reason and that as they make us pray more earnestly and hope more firmly so they make our Disappointments much more heavy and occasion us to think our Trust and Confidence in God were deceiv'd when they were only not answer'd according to our Wishes But wherein then stands the Blessedness of having God for our help and hopeing in the Lord our God if he will only help us in the way of Nature and we may only hope for what is reasonable and fit why this is as much as any Reasonable Man can look for or desire The utmost that a Reasonable Creature can hope for is to be favoured and succeeded by God in all his Reasonable and Honest Undertakings by means that are natural and common to him with all the World 'T is a great Support to the Mind of Man to believe himself under the Protection of a Power

the Snare of the Hunter thou savedst him from Destruction and crownedst him with Mercy and Loving Kindness and mad'st him instrumental in procuring the desire of all our Hearts an honourable Peace the Opportunity of healing all our Wounds recovering all our Losses and making up the Breaches of an intestine Foes our foolish Discords and ill-grounded Animosities had occasion'd the opportunity of settling our Affairs and looking to the ground we stood upon of putting them in such a posture that neither Enemies abroad nor Enemies at home might give us any great Disturbance that the Religion of our Country and its most ancient properest and best tempered Government might be secur'd against the Attempts and Machinations of its old inveterate Enemies the Sons of Violence and Darkness and from the noisy Importunities of unexperienc'd raw new-fangled Schematists and Speculators But contrary to this the Spirit of Discord is gone out among us and the sweet hope of all the Kingdom is in a moment snatched away from us e'er we had time to try to move thee by our Prayers or time to apprehend a Stroke so painful and so mortal Thy former Favours did not promise such Conclusion But we will hold our Peace since 't is thy doing We are much surer that thou may'st in Justice thus chastise us for our Sins than we could be that thou hadst so much Mercy for such Sinners as we have all our Lives experienced from thee Permit us never so long to talk with thee of thy Judgments yet must we still conclude Righteous art thou O Lord when we plead with thee Such Losses and such heavy Disappointments needs must prove effectual Cures of all our Confidence in Princes Never were hopes more justly rais'd nor plac'd more reasonably than ours have been upon two Noble Objects and yet Six years have quite defeated them dried up our Springs and almost desolated a Royal Tribe one of the fairest and most fruitful in the World How short is our Prospect now in what a little Compass is our Kingly Family contain'd Two precious Lives make up our whole Treasure The People of the East we find in Scriptures addressed to their Princes with O King Live for ever 'T is a vain Complement to Men of Flesh and Blood whose Breath goeth forth so suddenly who die like other Men who return again to their Earth and whose Thoughts all perish in a moment but if 't were ever reasonable our Case would call for it and we would use it May God enlarge these Borders build to these Princes a sure House and bind up their Souls in the Bundle of Life a long one here for our sakes and for their own an Everlasting one in Heaven II. Let us now withdraw from this uncomfortable side The Lives of Princes are it seems like Lands of Darkness where every step we make is in Distrust and Fear They give us little but Alarms Defeats and Disappointments Let us seek a Country of more light and Safety where hope dwells and where we may abide with Confidence Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his help and whose hope is in the Lord his God This is a Life and Will and Power we may depend upon Great is the Lord. and marvellous worthy to be praised there is no end of his Greatness The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works His kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and his dominion endureth throughout all ages These are foundations strong enough for all the trust confidence a Heart can hold He is of infinite Goodness to intend the happiness of all his Creatures of infinite Wisdom to know wherein it lies and of infinite Power to effect his wise and good designs towards us Here therefore we may place our Trust without any fears of Disappointment here we must fix our Hopes for here we can only find our Help Were there not such a Power above to overlook and govern Men and their Affairs what a place of Misery and Confusion would this World be what with the certainty of natural Causes working many sad effects tho' known before yet unavoidable what with the Multitude of fearful Accidents never to be prevented nor foreseen what with the Folly Ignorance Mistakes the Malice and perverseness and the Rage of one anothers Passions how wretched a thing would the Life of a Man be The ways of God I think are to permit natural Causes to work their natural Effects according to the the Powers he hath endued them with reserving to himself the Power of altering or suspending them as he sees fit and when he pleases and to suffer Men to act as free Agents having given them Reason and reveal'd his Will to them and laid down all sufficient Motives to restrain them from what they know is evil and to encourage them to what is truly good reserving to himself however the Power of changing their Inclinations directing them in their Designs and ifluencing them all as he sees fit By means neither the certainty of natural operations nor the freedom of Man's Will exclude his Government of Men and Nature nor hinder us from addressing to him by Prayer for what we want and Praise for what we have receiv'd both which would be in vain were Nature not to be diverted from her way nor the Will of man flexible by some Superior over-ruling Power Were Natures Course unalterably fixt and the Will of Men not to be moved Prayer would be insignificant and useless Were not Men at liberty in general they could not be accountable for what they did they could have neither Vice nor Vertue Were not the Laws of nature fixt we could not live in any sort of certainty we cou'd not undertake any thing nor could have any hope or expectation of succeeding But as it pleases God to govern by these two known Rules and to be still the Master of them both there is all the room that can be for our Endeavours Care and Vigilance our Vertue and our Studies and all the Reason and Grounds for our applying to him our trusting in him and dependence upon him Our hope and Trust in God must therefore be directed by these settled and established Rules of Providence These are the known and standing Laws of his Wise Government the rest is Dispensation Favour Grace and Favour we may innocently hope for pray for and expect from his indulgent Goodness where no establish'd Law of Nature is subverted but for a Miracle 't is much more reasonable to wish for than expect one in our Favour We know that nothing is impossible with God but yet our Hope is never equal to his Power nor do we ever trust in him for any thing uncommon without some Promise in particular We know it is as possible for God to restore again the Dead to Life as Health to a Diseased Man what is the Reason then that we do not importune him with our most earnest and united Prayers to