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	world_n	13,510	5	4.9137	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36233	The preachers precept of consideration, or, Englands chief lesson and duty in this sad time of visitation wherein is contained, 1. A catalogue and collection of all the particular capital sins mentioned in Scriptures ... 2. The author's opinion and judgment, for which and why it is, that this unparallel'd visitation is now laid upon us / delivered in the parish church of St. Katherine Coleman, London, upon the monthly fast-days set apart for humiliation, by His Majesties special command.	Dobson, Jeremiah.	1665 (1665)	Wing D1799; ESTC R32815	35,607	45

doth not not Consider Yea hence it is that though life and death good and evil as (d) Deut. 30.15 Moses speaks are set before us and put to our choice yet the generality of people in the world live as persons not at all concerned whether there be a God or no an Heaven or an Hell eternal Joyes or everlasting Torments So that a serious consideration is very good and necessary for us even at all times but the most proper season for it as Solomon tells us is the time of affliction In the time of Adversity Consider Whence the point of Doctrin that offers it self to our Consideration is this Doct. That when Gods Judgements are in the Earth and the sad tokens of his displeasure appear against a Person or a Nation then it 's a proper season for them seriously to lay things to heart and wisely to consider The guise and custom of all Atheistical Epicures and graceless Worldlings is quite contrary who when any crosses disasters or losses are in judgement inflicted upon them do not retire into their Closets and there enter into a serious meditation of the matter communing with their own hearts and considering who it is that smites them and for what but either with Cursing Oaths and Execrations they break forth into repining and murmuring against Gods dispensations towards them which many times end in Despair or else they run to the Tavern or Alehouse that so in the jovial company of good fellows they may drown the sense of all sorrow and care and thwart and non-plus if it be possible the end and design of God in punishing them His good end certainly was to humble them and reclaim them from their iniquities but they listen not to the voyce of his Rod but in laetitiam luxum prosiliunt resolve to take their full swinge in voluptuousness saying (e) Wisd 1.6 7 8 9. Let us eat and drink and enjoy the good things of this life let us Crown our selves with Rose-buds and leave tokens of our mirth and jollity in every place This is the common deportment and practice of the ungodly in time of adversity And this they are either betrayed into by their own deceitful vile carnal hearts or else they are byassed by the great and general custom of the world or else they are prompted to it by Satan who knows full well that a due and serious Consideration would take them from him and make them quickly renounce and abhor all wicked wayes And therefore it is that he doth still with all his might and subtilty strive to divert and disswade them from it as a most childish sad and dumpish melancholy course which probably may endanger their health but can otherwise do them no good Whereby it appears that the more necessary any Duty is the more opposite Satan and our false carnal hearts are thereunto For there is not a more advantagious usefull and profitable nor a more excellent heavenly and acceptable Duty as I shall shew more fully hereafter for a good Christian to be exercised in at all times and upon all occasions in all estates and conditions especially in the day of adversity than this of a serious Consideration And therefore it is that Almighty God commends it unto us so much in Scripture as a singular means to help and direct us how to steer our courses aright as Deut. 32.29 Oh that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end Psal 4.4 Stand in awe and sin not commune with your own hearts and be still Prov. 4.26 Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established and Hag. 1.5 7. Now therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts Consider your wayes In which remarkable place the Adverb Now and Conjunction Therefore plainly point out the Time and Occasion when and wherefore God required them to practise this duty of Consideration The Children of Israel being brought home to Jerusalem again out of their long Captivity in Babylon were exceeding backward and negligent in their carrying on the work and building of the House of the Lord. Forward enough it seems they were to erect and prepare sumptuous buildings and neat habitations for themselves the Prophet calls them cieled Houses v. 4. but the house of the Lord they let that lye waste pretending forsooth v. 2. that it was not a fit time yet to doe it This was their Crime Now the Judgment which God inflicted upon them for it was that of Famine as v. 6 9 10 11. Ye looked for much and lo it came to little and when ye brought it home I did blow upon it and why saith the Lord of Hosts because of mine House that is waste and ye run every man to his own house Therefore the Heaven over you is stayed from dew and the Earth is stayed from her fruit And I called for a drought upon the Land and upon the Mountains and upon the Corn and upon the new Wine and upon the Oyl and upon that which the ground bringeth forth and upon Men and upon Cattel and upon all the labour of the hands Surely a deplorable sad and most miserable state and condition And what is now the duty that God the great Physician of Souls puts them upon here by the Prophet and that both in order to a speedy and thorow Reformation of themselves as well as for the happy procuring of his loving kindness and gracious reconciliation towards them Why it is nothing but this Consider your wayes A duty which the Prophet Haggai seems to look back upon as an Instar omnium and therefore it is observable that he presseth no other duty upon them in the whole Prophecy Neither doth he content himself to deliver his Message authoritativè with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. thus saith the Lord of Hosts as here in this Chapter but again afterwards to inforce the same he earnestly prayes and intreats them to fall upon the speedy performance of it as Chap. 2. v. 15. to 20. Which frequent inculcation of the Precept serves to teach us two things by the way 1. The strange stupidity of the People in that they were no more affected with those manifest marks and tokens of Gods indignation no though he had snatched their very Meat out of their mouths And then 2. The great necessity of the Duty in times of distress So that when Gods Judgments are in the Earth and the sad tokens of his displeasure appear against a Person or Nation then its a proper season for them seriously to lay things to heart and wisely to consider In the prosecution of this Point I do intend to proceed in this method Method 1. By way of Explication to acquaint you with the Nature of the Duty in general as also the Subject matter thereof touching withall a little upon the two great Circumstances of most convenient Time and Place 2. By way of Confirmation to subjoyn some Reasons for the

the midst and worst of tryals or evils that can befal us or our Relations inasmuch as He is thorow Jesus Christ the Father of mercies and hath graciously promised (l) Psal 145 9. that all things shall work together for our good and that he will never leave us nor forsake us Love and Mercy as the Psalmist intimates is ever more one Ingredient in all his Dispensations towards us Insomuch that I dare deliver it for a certain Truth though perhaps a seeming Paradox that many times it is a mercy that God is pleased to remove and withdraw a mercy from us For we may be sure if he take away one it is that thereby He may make way for another a greater and better to be bestowed upon us Thus He oft withdraws temporal Comforts to make room in mens hearts for Spiritual Blessings and Graces thus He oft denies health to our bodies to make us mind the welfare of our souls yea thus He oft deprives his own dear Children and Servants of a natural life that so He may take them unto Himself and put them into a full and actual possession of heavenly joys The Prophet Isaiah averrs what I say Chap. 57.1 2. The consideration whereof I suppose was that which enabled patient Job so contentedly to entertain the most sad news of the sodain death of all his children (m) Job 1.21 The Lord gave c. This made David so chearfully say (n) Psal 31.5 Into thine hands I commit my spirit c. And this made (o) Phil. 1.21 23. St. Paul desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ and to count death his exceeding gain Again 2. Another thought and consideration that may be of very good use to arm and fortifie Believers against the affection of overmuch Fearfulness and Despondency Remedy 2. is to consider what Death is Some indeed look upon it as Summa Malorum the Worst of all evils Rex terrorum the King of fears and fancy it to be a most terrible fiery Serpent but the (p) 1 Cor. 15.56 57. Sting we know is taken away and then why I pray you should it be so dreadful In Scripture I am sure it is called a sleep a (q) Job 3.17 ceasing from trouble a resting from labours and so the Grave a (r) Isai 57.2 bed to rest in Now what more grateful and welcome to Nature when men are wearied and tired out with labour than to betake themselves to their rest What more comfortable than a soft Bed What more desirable and pleasant than sleep Nay for some reasons in holy Writ and by the ancient Fathers it is very plainly preferred before life For life says St. Augustine is nothing at all but transitus ad mortem a passage to death but Death is introitus in vitam meliorem an Entrance into eternal life This therefore all things considered must needs be better as tending to a more excellent end No wonder then that you hear St. John (s) Rev. 14.13 pronounce them blessed that dye in the Lord. And good ground it seems had the Wiseman to say (t) Eccl. 7.1 that the day of death is better than the day of ones birth and Reason He had (u) Eccl. 4.2 to praise the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive It is observable that the very Heathens were wont to celebrate the day of their Birth with sadness seriousness and sorrow but of a friends Death with all mirth joyfulness and feasting So fully and verily were they perswaded of the truth of that memorable Saying of the Oracle Optimam non nasci proximum mori i. e. the best and most desirable thing is not to be born at all the next to dy quickly Let none of us I beseech you therefore fall short of them in point of courage and resolution forasmuch as our hope is not confined only to this life for then indeed (w) 1 Cor. 15.19 we were of all men most m●serable But we are assured of unspeakable bliss and eternal peace in the life to come and a joyful Resurrection of our bodies at the last day The Wiseman tells us (x) Eccl. 12.7 that the Spirit shall return immediately unto God that gave it and as for the Body though it be laid in the dust and (y) 1 Cor. 15.42 43. sown in corruption yet it shall be raised in incorruption though sown in weakness yet it shall raised in power though sown in dishonour yet it shall be raised in glory Which Metaphorical phrase of St. Paul gave the holy Fathers occasion to call the Churchyard Gods field upon earth Wherein the graves are the furrows the dead Bodies of his Saints are the Seeds sown and the Resurrection at the last day the time of harvest when God will send forth his Reapers i.e. the holy Angels as Christ himself expresly (z) Mat. 13.39 calls them that they may (a) Mat. 24.31 gather his elect together from the four winds and from the one end of heaven to the other even as wheat into his garner And then 3. Another consideration is the impartiality of Death Remedy 3. when our appointed time is come and the natural necessity of it In regard whereof the Heathen (x) Horat. Ode 4. Poet says well that aequo pede pulsat pauperum tabernas regumque turres i. e. It boldly knocks at the Palace gates of Princes and Nobles as well as rings and raps at the doors of poor Peasants It balks nor spares none when it is sent be they high or low rich or poor young or old For (b) Heb. 9.27 Statutum est c. It is appointed for all men once to dye Death is the greatest Monarch and the most ancient King in the world For death says (c) Rom. 5.14 St. Paul hath reigned from Adam to Moses to which I may add that it hath reigned from Moses to us and so shall still reign over all to the end of the world Every one without exception must stoop and bow to his Scepter One (d) 1 Cor. 15.41 star indeed may differ from another star in glory i. e. in brightness lustre and magnitude but yet we know that as sure as they have their Rise in the West so sure they are to set in the East Even so it 's true One man on earth may differ from another man in glory i. e. in wisedom and wealth or beauty and honour c. but yet notwithstanding as sure as they had a rising in their Birth so they shall have a setting in Death the honour of the greatest as well as the meanest when their appointed time is come must be laid in the Dust For (e) Eccl. 2.15 16. one event happens to them all and how dyes the wiseman even as the fool Dye we must said the (f) 2 Sam. 14.14 wise woman of Tekoah neither doth God respect any person Now seeing it is thus that Death is