Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	life_n	live_v	spirit_n	8,899	5	5.3156	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59876	A sermon preached at the funeral of the Reverend Benj. Calamy, D.D. and late minister of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, Jan. 7th, 1686 by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1686 (1686)	Wing S3347; ESTC R21708	14,846	42

it It gives us a more clear distinct comprehensive knowledge of God and divine things which is an Angelical perfection of the Mind and Understanding and he must be a strange man who can be so constantly employed in the Contemplation of God and the things which relate to another and a better life and not find his Soul ravisht with those unseen and unspeakable Glories who is so constantly employed in taking care of other mens Souls and takes no care of his own who is so frequent in his Devotions as the very nature of our Work exacts from us and not live a most divine and heavenly life There are indeed some who in the most Divine Employment are no great Examples of such a Divine Conversation but I fear they will not be found in the number of these faithful and wise Servants Whoever heartily applies himself to the care of Souls will in the first place take care of his own and the faithful discharge of this Duty will raise us so much above the ordinary Level and Attainments of Christians as will prepare us for a greater Reward and advance us to a more perfect state of Glory Nay that immediate Relation we stand in to Christ who is the Soveraign Lord and Judge of the World if we approve our selves faithful and wise Servants will secure us of a more excellent Reward The Church on Earth and the Church in Heaven is but one Church one Houshold and Family and those whom he has made Rulers of his Houshold here to whom he has committed the greatest places of Trust and Dignity need not fear being degraded in the other World if they adorn their Office and faithfully discharge their Trust here And therefore our Saviour tells his Apostles Verily I say unto you that ye which have followed me in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the Throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel that is that their Reward and Glory in the other World should answer to that place of Trust and Power and Dignity which they had in the Church on Earth and this Promise is no more peculiar to the Apostles than their Office was In a word if we consider what the state of the other World is and who is King there that it is the blessed Jesus our Great High Priest King of Salem or the new Jerusalem and Priest of the most High God how mean and contemptible soever our Office is thought here we need not doubt but the Scene will be mightily chang'd when we come into that Kingdom where the King is a High Priest Let this then beloved Brethren of the Clergy be a mighty Encouragement to us to be very diligent and faithful in the discharge of this great Trust whatever Difficulties we meet with whatever Scorns Reproaches or Sufferings it is but expecting a while and our Lord will come and his Reward is with him and blessed for ever blessed is that Servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing Yea blessed for ever blessed as my Text gives us reason to hope is this our dear Brother whose Remains lie here before us who when his Lord came was found thus doing We may lament the loss of so kind a Relation so true a Friend so faithful a Pastor and Fellow-labourer according to the several interests we had in him but he blessed Soul has fought a good Fight and finished his Course and kept the Faith and is now gone to receive a Crown of Righteousness a Crown of Immortality and Glory He is now gone to that great Bishop and Shepherd of Souls whose Flock he has so carefully and diligently fed and whose wandring and stragling Sheep he has reduced into the Fold To that kind Shepherd who laid down his life for his Sheep and therefore will not fail to reward those who have spent their lives and were ready to have sacrificed them too for the service of Souls When we speak of so great a man it is below his Character to mention such things as would be thought considerable Attainments in meaner persons though indeed a truly great man does nothing meanly A great Mind gives a peculiar grace and decency to common Actions as it was easie to observe in his very Mirth and freest Humours that he never gave the Reins out of his hands but governed himself by the strictest Rules of Prudence and Religion But I shall confine my self to the subject of my Text and consider him onely as a faithful and wise Steward and therefore have very little to adde for I doubt not but you who knew him especially you who have enjoyed the benefit of his Ministry and have lived under his Care and Conduct have already applied what I have discoursed on this Argument to your deceased Pastor and would I have chosen any particular man to have drawn the Character by of a wise and faithful Steward there are not many men I should sooner have thought on than Dr. Calamy to have been the Pattern That he did take care to give you Meat in due season I need not tell you because you all know it If Preaching in season and out of season if publick Instructions and private Applications where they were needful or desired be to feed the Flock of Christ to give Meat to his Houshold and Family this he did and that very faithfully and wisely too In the first place he took care to inform himself and to furnish his own Mind with all useful knowledge and his constant Preaching though without any vain affectation of Learning which serves onely to amuse not to instruct did sufficiently discover both his natural and acquired Abilities He had a clear and distinct apprehension of things an easie and manly Rhetorick strong Sense conveyed to the mind in familiar words good Reasons inspired with a decent Passion which did not onely teach but move and transport the Hearers and at the same time gave both light and heat for indeed he was a good man which is necessary to make a good Preacher he had an inward vital sense of Religion and that animated his discourses with the same Divine Passions which he felt in himself He did not entertain his Hearers with School-Subtilties or a coniectural Divinity with such thin and airy Speculations as can neither be seen nor felt nor understood but his chief care was to explain the great Articles of Faith and Rules of Life what we must believe and how we must live that we may be eternally happy And he did as a faithful Servant ought to do as he declared a little before his death that he never preached any thing but what he himself firmly believed to be true I need not tell you what a troublesome World we have lived in for some years past such Critical times as would try the Principles Spirits of men when a prevailing Faction threatned both Church and State and the fears