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	think_v	8,106	5	4.3475	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79988	The cry of a stone, or, a treatise; shewing what is the right matter, forme, and government of the visible church of Christ. How, and wherein the present Church of England is wanting and defective, both in the body of the land, and in the parochiall branches thereof, with divers reasons and grounds taken from the Scriptures, to perswade all that feare God, rather to suffer any afflictions at the hands of men, than to submit to mans carnall policy and humane devices in the worship of God, or be deprived of the sweet fellowship of the saints in the right order of the Gospel. Together with a just reproofe of the over-strained and excessive separation, contentions and divisions of such as commonly are called Brownists. By Robert Coachman.	Coachman, Robert.	1642 (1642)	Wing C4746; Thomason E137_32; ESTC R208315	72,606	82

pulling trouble upon themselves and beggery upon their wives and children we live at wealth and peace and die quietly in our beds and are honourably buried amongst our friends and leave behinde us a paterne and patrimony to our children Other motives to perswadeus to suffering BUt surely if we had that zeale for the glory and house of God SECT 18. which David had wee would not dwell in our seeled houses Psal 132. 2 3. nor give our selves to sleepe and slumber and see the house of the Hag. ● 4. Lord lie waste and the stones thus scattered amongst the rubbish which Psal 102. 13 14. must not now be understood of any materiall Temple but of the spirituall building of those lively stones the soules and bodies of the faithfull 1 Pet. 2. 5. into an holy Temple in the Lord And this holy Temple lyeth yet wast and the stones hid in the dust and dung of the earth And although Ephes 2. 21. 1 Pet. 1. 12. the Lords time be come to delight in the fellowship of his Saints and the Angels stand ready to rejoyce in the beautie of this House and Christ desireth to walke amidst the Candlesticks and to take Rev. 2. 1. his repast with his beloved at noone And yet here 's all asleep and taking care for their wives children cattell farmes and merchandize c. Caut. 1. 6. and they cannot come to this Supper of the Lord to which they are invited Luke 14. 18 19. for feare of losing some worldly toyes and trifles Some will not trust their owne judgements others will not controll their betters some are right in judgement but are too cold and drousie to come to action others are fearefull and timerous some runne lightly and foolishly without their errant others are so wise 2 Sam. 18. 22. that they can doe nothing And thus by all and all there is not that done that should be many labour to hew polish and prepare stones and timber for the building but there is no sound frame yet reared or right forme appearing And it were well if yet at the last houre of the day we could set our selves to this worke and bring our soules and bodies into this holy house in which a dayes dwelling were better then a thousand elsewhere Psal 84. 10. and truely if wee had but tried the excellencie of this house wee would thinke nothing too deare for it And what if it should cost us our precious lives can we bestow them upon better termes can wee live ever or can we passe the time that God hath Acts 2● 13. set will not death as well finde us in our beds as in the Iaole or at Tiburne And who can tell whether we by carrying our selves humbly modestly and conscionably before God and men without depraving or abusing them in authority may not cause our haters to become Psal 106. 45. our lovers and our enemies our friends when our righteousnesse is brought forth as the light and the judgement as the bright shining noone Psal 37. 6. yea if it be best for his glory we are sure he will deliver us from the oppressions of men and strife of tongues prolonging our dayes and Dan. 3. 17. 18. Psal 66. 12. honouring us with gray hayres as a Crowne of glory being found in the way of righteousnesse notwithstanding all the oppositions of the times Prov. 16. 31. and violence of men But ●●t if he will not but say he hath no pleasure in us nor that we shall not see the glory of his house but shall die in 2 Sam. 15. 26. the very endeavouring of it let him doe what he please and let it be enough if our children may build this house and enjoy the fruit of that which our lives payed for And if wee must honour God with our bloods let us doe it Our lives are not too good to be given for Gods truth Act. 5. 41. Gal. 1. 16. cheerefully rejoycing that we are found worthy to suffer for his name and let us cast off this nice flesh and idle vanitie consult no more with flesh and blood but forsake our selves in that kinde and if we will talke of heaven let us contemne the earth and be content to lose lands goods and life for Christ and his Gospels sake for else in looking after Mark 8. 38. heaven we doe like the sluggard which lusteth but hath nought and as children which gape for all their parents wealth but will take no Prov. 13. 4. paines to please them Away with this selfe-love that will have heaven and earth too where is our love to Christ that purchased heaven since we will not Mark 8. 36. part with one dram of ease pleasure or profit for the furtherance of his Gospel And how can we be said to honour him that will rather cease Mat. 13. 20 2● our obedience to him in the things he requireth then part with a few worldly toyes and trifles It is no strange thing for Christians to be persecuted of Christians BUt this is a very grievous thing when a man shall not onely be SECT 19. opposed and cruelly dealt withall at the hands of ignorant and Object 8 vaine men but when many wise Religious and godly men shall set themselves against one and be instruments of ones ruine and destruction Me thinketh it cannot be that such good men should be deceived and misled as they are if I be right I answer first Did not good Asa put faithfull Hanant in prison Answer 1 Did not godly David dispossesse true hearted Mephibosheth of his lands 2 Chro. 16. 10. 2 Sam. 16. 4. 2 Chron. 24. 23. Gen. 37. 28. Iob. 19. 2. 5. Did not reforming Ioash cause zealous zachariah to be stoned Did not Iosephs fellow Patriarches sell him into Egypt Did not Iobs wife and godly friends vex and torment his soule more than all his other crosses Was not the holy Saint of God Paul despised and derided even of his spirituall sonnes yea sometimes Manasses eateth Ephraim 1 Cor. 4. 3. 10. 15. and Ephraim Manasses and therefore it is no strange thing to see one Isai 9. 20. 21. Christian abused reviled cruelly handled at the hands of another Yea and if it were ever in any age it must needs be in ours since greater strictnesse and censoriousnesse was never found against one another then is now and no opposition or contrary opinion can be endured but there must be a uniformity even to the ty●hing of Mat. 22. 23. mint and annis And if men be not borne all in one day and brought up all in one Schoole or enured to one Preacher or that one man have learned a little faster or slower then his fellowes and begin to speake either more plainly or more darkely than ordinary he is by and by distasted and talked with to see if he be not some Arian Anabaptist Familist Brownist Puritane

shall wee doe Must wee spend our money Object 7 and be disturbed in our Calling Must wee alter our diet abate our habits and change our lodgings Alas must we goe to prison and lie there O! that I would be loth to doe many lie there and are poysoned by the ill ayre and usage and besides one knoweth not whether they will hang one or not they are so violent and mercilesse to all opposites c. I answer Doe not thousands die in their beds of Feavers Fluxes Answ 1 Surfets c. And can a man give his life for a better thing then for the honour of Christ and be sarcificed for the redeeming and recovering that liberty of the Gospel which this age refuseth to heare of and which fighteth against the confusions and corruptions of our times Heb. 11. ●● O that some Christians rightly informed in these things would stand forth and suffer and would not be delivered but would rather die then live to see Gods Ordinances so basely contemned and thrust out of place and humane traditions upheld with strong hand Secondly who seeth not that for want of resisting unto blood all assayes and beginnings which men have made have come to little Heb. 12. 4. many have set on upon a purer practice in divers places and so long as things could be carryed secretly they went well on but assoone Gal. 5. 7. as it began to be noted and talked against Some would flie off presently And if they were once called in question by authoritie and threatned there was presently a scattering and if some two or three were more stout then the rest then to prison a while they were sent and then their friends and acquaintance would resort to them some with compassionate complaints others with bigge speeches but all in carnall reasons till at last some mincing under hand acknowledgement There must be no yeelding in the cause of Christ or some equivocating Protestation must be framed and shewed to their opposites and so they should get out with great charge to take heed of factions schismes and conventicles and so there lies the life and soule of that begun practice and the parties afterward either become conformable or else keepe themselves very close And what construction can be made of this but that either it was not truth they stood for or that they were not rightly informed in it but fell lightly and wantonly upon it and so left it as lightly againe or else that they made not conscience of doing the will of God in the things revealed to them whereas if they had stoutly stood out and borne their crosse with patience even to bands and death some other The day of suffering for Christ is a day of honour events would have followed and besides their pretious honourable death they should have given some furtherance to the glory and truth of God whereas by their cowardly yeelding the arme of flesh exulteth and reproach and scandall is cast upon the sincere profession and practice of Gods Ordinances and themselves commonly languish for losing the day and are as men livelesse amongst their neighbours and comfortlesse within themselves The time of suffering is now come ANd such is the carnality of our times even of the professors of Religion that they are never weary of ease pleasure and SECT 17. plentie nor feare the taking of too much thought for the flesh neither will they ever have the time come for judgement to begin Rom. 13. 14. at Gods House much lesse with the Apostle Paul will they take pleasure in afflictions and persecutions belike we are borne in the time when men must die in their nests and goe to heaven in feather-beds and the 2 Cor. 12. 10. Iob 29. 18. gate to heaven is growne so wide that men may runne in at it with all invented formality and fleshly libertie that can be invented or desired Some there are who will pray earnestly that the abuses in the Church may be removed and the cleare light of the Gospell really discovered and that the Saints may rejoyce together in the sweet fellowship of the Church and it is well they doe so but in their prayers they looke the wrong way for it ever to come in they looke it should be done with sound of Trumpet by decrees of Parliaments Iohn 18. 36. by Edicts of Princes alas the Kingdome of Christ is not of this world he gaines his glory here by abasement and they that will doe any good in his cause must cast away all carnall helps and henceforth know Christ according to the flesh no more but walke close with 2 Cor. 5. 16. him in his temptation And what doctrine is there in the Scriptures more cleare than this Did not Christ himselfe by death vanquish sinne and Satan 3. Luke 24. 26. and so enter into glory and was his whole life here any other then a continuall suffering and were not these his sufferings as well imitable as meritorious Are not we to looke unto him who is the Authour and finisher of our Faith and follow him in his temptations Heb. 12. 2. ● and are not all his promises made with the condition of the crosse Did not Paul desire to have fellowship with Christ in his Marke 10. 30. Phil. 3. 10. afflictions and to be made conformable to his death Well how commeth it to passe that wee never examine our selves by these things nor thinke of suffering afflictions but imagine that the common pace and prevailing course of the times and multitude will serve the turne to bring us to glory What priviledge have we above Christ above Paul and the Christians in the Primitive time Belike no Prophet nor good man can perish or be wronged in our Luke 13. 33. Nation but we are borne in the day in which he that is most godly is the most secure Well if it be not so I would it were so but it is rather to be feared we joyne too much carnall libertie with our Profession and Gal. 6. 1● too eagerly desire to make a faire shew in the flesh and measure Gods favour too much by temporall blessings and we thinke because we build us faire houses and make us costly apparell and eate our A vaine conceit meate merrily and lie and turne upon our feather-beds with our braines full of roving thoughts and traine up our children according to the fashion if withall we lend our eares sometimes to a Sermon and conferre sometimes cursarily of the Scripture and sometimes use a forme of Prayer in our Families we thinke God is wonderfully beholden to us and we are some rare instruments of his glory and notable pillars in his Church for we sit fast and Acts 26. 24. quiet and are not moved with errors nor schismes but when other busie and giddie headed men that can never be quiet rove and range about troubled in minde and distempered in affections and foolishly