Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	sin_n	sting_n	victory_n	14,564	5	9.4854	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30854	The life of the Right Reverend Father in God, Edw. Rainbow, D.D. late Lord Bishop of Carlisle to which is added, a sermon preached at his funeral by Thomas Tully, his lordship's chaplain, and chancellor of the said diocess of Carlisle; at Dalston, April the 1st. 1684.	Banks, Jonathan.; Tully, T. (Thomas), 1620-1676.	1688 (1688)	Wing B669; ESTC R13606	38,322	158

grace and perfection of the Will Could they but secure unto us the Vnum necessarium the blessed Hopes of an immutable Felicity in the next World when we leave them behind us and bid them Adieu for ever which is the only Foundation whereupon we may build a firm peace and uninterrupted comfort I grant they were richly worth all the Care Anxiety and Toil we expend in the prosecution of them But alas they are meer Emptiness and nothing so phantastical and airy that they delude our Embraces when we think to enjoy them most As for Riches the Eye is not satisfied with them Eccles 4. 8. thô we labour and bereave our Souls of good first to procure and then to keep them and after the Poor Wretch hath spent himself in drudging for them he shall leave them in Jer. 17. 11. the midst of his days and at his end shall be a Fool. And pray what is Honour that Idol of Worldly men We know that an Idol is nothing in 1 Cor. 8. 4. the World so is Honour too too thin and too airy to yield any solid real satisfaction It puffs a man up indeed and blows him a little bigger than his Neighbour but the Timpany renders him uneasie both to himself and others and when God sends him a Thorn in the Flesh it pricks the Bladder and the gawdy Bubble vanisheth This is Pharaoh and all his multitude Ezek. 31. 18. And as for Pleasures such I mean as the Voluptuary calls so why grant the Epicure which yet he rarely meets with a lucky concurrence of all that can possibly advance a delight the Spirits are presently exalted into a Rapture and so the goodly Transport dies in a moment leaving Penitential Nature to repair the damage and Prodigal expence of a short Extravagance What profit then hath he that hath Eccl. 5. 16. laboured for the Wind So little Satisfaction can the Creatures afford which themselves groan and travel in pain under the bondage of Vanity the primitive Curse of Sin. Indeed had Man been created like the Angels in Heaven all Soul and Spirit and not tyed to the cumbersom luggage of a Body he had then been free from all the Troubles and Calamities which attend a Mortal State. But since we are doom'd to dwell in these Houses of Clay whose foundation is in the dust Every man in his best Estate is altogether Vanity And yet while we do Sojourn in these tottering Tabernacles the Natural Respect we bear to the Noble Guest that lodges in them puts us to a vast expence and trouble in Repairing the Decays and patching up the Ruines of them This indeed is but good Husbandry But when I observe the prodigal and luxurious Ornament some bestow upon this mean Cottage I can hardly hold from asking them Socrates his Question What do you mean to make your Prison so strong And yet when they have done all the Tenure of them is but for life under an Arbitrary Lord and how soon that Lease may expire we none of us know perhaps this Night may our Souls be required of us However at the furthest the Age of Man is threescore years and ten or if he Psal 90. 10. come to fourscore years yet is his strength then but labour and sorrow so soon passeth it away and we are gone Thus much concerning the Blessedness of their Estate who dye in the Lord in their being delivered from the Toyl and Fatigue the Emptiness and Dissatisfaction of things below The second and last Topic I purposed to shew it from was that positive and superabundant satisfaction that glorious recompence of Reward which they shall meet with in another World couched in these words and their works do follow them When Man apostatized from the Allegiance he owed his Maker he fell under the Power and Dominion of Sin and Sin delivered over the Captive Rebel to the Bondage and Tyranny of Death which gnawed revengfully upon his Flesh in the Grave and tortured his polluted Soul upon the Eternal Rack of Anguish and Despair in Hell Hell originally prepared for the Arch-Rebel of Heaven the great Leviathan of Sin and his Accursed Train but now become the common Gaol of Men and Devils Such a Prince of Terrors is Death when arm'd with the poysonous Sting of Sin. But the Captain of our Salvation has conquered Death and disarm'd it of that power it had got over us by Sin. See how the Apostle triumphs over it in the Lesson appointed for this Solemnity O Death 1 Cor. 1● 55 56. where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Victory The Sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law i. e. There is nothing makes Death like a Serpent able to hurt us but Sin without which the Grave is but a Bed wherein we take a long Lethargic Sleep And that which impowers Sin to do us mischief is the Law which prohibits it and consequently involves us in the Curse due to our Guilt But thanks be to God who giveth us Ver. 5● the Victory thrô our Lord Jesus Christ Blessed be the Father of Mercies who by what Christ hath ●one for us hath gotten us the Victory over Sin and by this happy Conquest has made Death only a Silent passage to a glorious Immortality where they who dye in the Lord shall for ever for ever enjoy such Divine Transports of Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it is not lawful for a man to utter 2 Cor. 12. 4. said the Eloquent S. Paul when the over flowing sense of them rapt him into Extasie Blessed Souls which always behold the Face of God in whose presence is fulness of Joy for evermore A sight even a bare sight able to transform us into his own likeness and make our Faces like the face of Moses too bright and dazling for any mortal Eye to look upon We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3. 2. Blessed are those that-stand before the Lamb of God in his Throne of Glory that are admitted into the Society of the Cherubims and Seraphims those sprightly Choiristers of Heaven where nothing is heard but the voice of Joy and Gladness There 's no Sin to stain their white Robes of Purity or eclipse the glorious Emanations of Light which they receive from the Sun of Righteousness no Jealousies or Fears to disturb their Enjoyments neither can any imperfection taint that state where God shall be all in all 1 Cor. 15. 28. Surely now the Blessedness of dying in the Lord is so ravishing a Contemplation as even to make S. Johns Wish the language of all our Souls Come Lord Jesus come Rev. 22. 20 quiokly And indeed the happiness of our future Life is not fully and sensibly revealed unto us but seems on purpose to be hid with Christ in Col. 3. 3. God that we might not be too restless and impatient under the burden of Mortality

Piety and real Worth. His Father Mr. Thomas Rainbow was a Reverend Divine noted for his Learning and Vertue who after his being educated at Christ's College in Cambridge was first presented to the Rectory of Bliton above-mentioned and then to that of Wintringham in the same County of Lincoln situate upon Humber that great Aestuarium where so many Rivers meet e're they pay their Tributes to the Ocean Both which Places were conferr'd upon him by the Worshipful Family of the Wrays of Glentworth And he is said to have well deserved such Advancement being a Man who preached as well to his Parishioners by his exemplary good Life as by his sound Doctrin and when he dy'd thô I cannot learn certainly when that was left the Odor of a good Name behind him Nor was his Mother Mrs. Rebecca Allen Daughter to Mr. David Allen Rector of Ludbrough in Lindsey-Coast aforeseid an unfit Consort for so Worthy a Man. For to many of those good qualifications of a Woman mentioned by the wisest of Kings she added that of the knowledge of the Scriptures even in the Original Languages being trained up by her Father to the understanding of the Latin the Greek and the Hebrew So that if the Female Sex Eustochium and others have been so much commended by S. Hierom for their great Skill in the Sacred Writings the Praise that this excellent Matron merited in this kind ought not to be forgotten Which is also a pregnant instance that the other Sex is not incapable of some of the most profound Studies and not altogether unfit to walk in the most retired Paths of Learning Our Edward Rainbow had the Name of Edward given him from his Godfather Mr. Edward Wray of Rycot who was younger Brother to Sir John Wray the elder and who was a great Courtier and Favourite of the elder George Duke of Buckingham by whose Interest Mr Wray married the Heiress of the Honour and Fortune of the Lord Norris of Rycot and to whom joyntly with his Brother Sir John Wray his God-Son Mr. Rainbow afterwards dedicated his first printed Sermon Preached at S. Pauls Cross Entituled Labour forbidden and commanded But to return whence we have digressed a little From such pious Parents who can doubt but Edward Rainbow met with a good Education Goodness is diffusive of it self by Nature and most especially when seated in those of so near a Relation as Parents to Children The sense of their Duty in the first quickens their desires of propagating their Vertues in their Off-spring as well as continuing in them their Names to Posterity And accordingly this vertuous Couple took great care early to instil into this their Son the Principles of Religion a great and cordial Love for his Heavenly Lord and Master and a just Fear to offend him in the breach of any of his Divine Commands They taught him to aspire to the possession of that Celestial Country where that love for true Piety would be as unbounded as that God who is the Original of it And doubtless the early cultivating of so hopeful a Plant was not ineffectual as the Sequel shew'd He had been taught that this Life was but a Pilgrimage and what would be the conclusion of minding his walking therein soon which made him hasten his pace to Heaven-ward For Travellers never hasten so much as when they expect good Lodgings at their Journeys end His Infancy being past about Nine years of Age he was sent to Fillingham a Village in the so often mentioned County of Lincoln where his Grandmother Allen and his Ant Peachel his Mothers Sister lived At which place he begun to lay the Foundation of Secular Learning which his Parents observing him to be very capable of improving to a considerable height sent him in A. Dom. 1619. to the publick School of Gainsborough and from thence in April 16●0 to Peterborow in Northamptonshire to be one of the Scholars of Dr. John Williams who was then Prebend of that Church And it was upon his account that Edward Rainbow was sent to Westminster School in June 1621 Dr. Williams old Mr. Rainbows great Friend being advanced to the Deanry of Westminster and the Bishoprick of Lincoln and consequently had thereby better opportunities to gratifie his Friends Son in Westminster where he then chose to reside In all these short Stages of his Youth he was so far from frustrating the Hopes which his Parents had conceived of him that the great Proficiency under his several Masters adorned with his meek and obliging humor easily gained him the Favour of his Instructors and the Esteem of his more diligent School-Fellows In which state he continued till fitted for the University and then he was sent to Corpus Christi College in Oxon in July 1623. at the Age of Fifteen where his elder Brother John was admitted and died Fellow of that House He had before this viz. in March 1621 lost his dear Mother which loss gave him all the disturbance that a dutiful Son was capable of for the Death of so prudent and tender a Mother and whom he never mentioned without Honour Nor did she dye lamented by him alone but by all those who were acquainted with her extraordinary Parts and religious Conversation and who were not generally Enemies of or Strangers to true Vertue Having paid the Debt due to the memory of his good Mother I am obliged to resume the Thred of his History and consequently to mention that during his stay in Oxford he applied himself to his Studies with that attention which became the Son of so Learned a Father which course he held on in Magdalen College in Cambridge whither he was transplanted in June 1. 1625 and that upon the following occasion The Right Honourable and truly Noble Lady Frances Countess Dowager of Warwick and Daughter to Sir Christopher Wray sometimes Lord Chief Justice of England as she inherited her Fathers Liberality who had been a great Benefactor to the last mentioned College of Magdalen in giving Lands and Moneys to it for the Founding a Fellowship and two Scholarships so did she also inherit the kindness of her Family to that of Edward Rainbow and therefore in her life time did him that honour to nominate him one of her Scholars there Upon which account as hath been already hinted he removed from Oxon thither and was admitted into that College and Scholarship at the time above-mentioned He took his Degree of Bachelor of Arts there in Anno Dom. 1627 and commenced Master of Arts in 1630 a Year which is sufficiently remarkable in History for the Birth of our late Gracious Sovereign Charles the Second and for the descent of Gustavus Adolphus King of Sweden into Germany where till death put a Period to his Martial Atchievments Victory seem'd to be his constant Attendant In July after he had proceeded Master of Arts he was sent for to teach the Free-School at Kirton in Lindsey Coast three or four Miles from Bliton which was profered

of being Interr'd among the meanest of those that own the same common Saviour and Redeemer will testifie to all Posterity As for the Pageantry of Funeral Pomp and the Artificial voice of Monuments he looked not upon them as Ensigns of Honour but rather as Trophies erected by Death in memory of that fatal Victory Sin got over us in the Garden of Eden when we became like the Beasts that perish But thô his Merit and Vertue do loudly call for all the Justice Oratory can do them yet I dread to disturb his Sacred rest by prophaning the Religion of his last peremptory dying Command that I should to express my self in his own words be very sparing in any Character of him But yet the Modesty of the dead must not rob the living of the comfortable and happy Influence the manner of his death may have upon every one that hears it My Text leads me directly to that And indeed his was such a Ravishment to all that beheld it that their Hearts grew warm within them ready to break out into that pathetic Expression of the Apostle Let us also go that we Joh. 11. 16. may die with him And whenever thou O God the Lord to whom belong the Issues of Life and Death shalt call us to follow him O let us die the death of this righteous person Num. 23. 10. and let our last end be like his 'T was admirable to observe with what submissive Humility and chearful Devotion he received his last Sickness as the Messenger of Death How steadily he maintained a Divine temper of Mind without the impertinent and vain interruption of Secular Concerns vigorous Ejaculations fervent Prayers holy Meditation seasonable prudent and pious Advice were the constant Employment of his heavenly Soul till his weak and languishing Voice concluded the Period of his life with this pious and submissive Expression God has now taken from me the use of my Tongue but I desire you all to employ yours in Prayers to him for me This sweet disposition of Spirit was so pleasing to God that he therefore seemed to dissolve his earthly Tabernacle without either pain or sickness on purpose that the Troubles of a Body might not interrupt the Calmness and Serenity of his Soul. Thus he lived Copying out through the whole tenor and series of his Actions the Noble draught St. Paul has left of a good Bishop 1 Tim. 3. adorning his Sacred Function with the glorious variety of all those Graces which qualifie the Man of God to bear the Character of Ambassador from Heaven And thus he died in the Lord. Is not he then blessed Yea saith the Spirit And this leads me in the second place to shew wherein the blessedness of that Estate consists And First In being delivered from the toyl and fatigue the emptiness and dissatisfaction of things below To read the many Noble Discourses the Heathen Philosophers have transmitted to Posterity of the emptiness and insignificancy of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the outward enjoyments of Life those Toys and Bables upon which we fool away the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the precious time God has put into our hands to secure unto our Selves a blessed Eternity were sufficient to give any thinking man an Eternal disgust against them So little happiness could those refined Wits and great Masters of Reason find in the fluttering Pomp of temporal Grandure But if you are not satisfied with the Authority of the Heathen thô herein they uttered the genuine Oracles of Nature why then let us refer the Determination of the Point to Solomon a person peculiarly qualified to be Judge in the Case both in respect of the Excellent Spirit of Wisdom that was in him and because he is one that stuck not to gratifie his Curiosity in trying all Experiments of that Nature for he gave his heart Eccl. 1. 17. to know madness and folly as well as wisdom And what was the result of all Why after this glorious and potent Monarch had made Silver in Jerusalem as Stones for abundance and 1 King. 10. 27. 1 King. 11. 3. had taken him a thousand Wives and Concubines erected him Magnificent Buildings planted him delicious Vineyards fruitful Orchards pleasant Gardens adorn'd with Lillies more splendidly arrayed than he himself in all his glory after he had gotten him great Possessions Numerous choice of Men Singers and Women Singers and the delights of the Sons of Men and denied himself nothing that his Eyes desired nor withheld his heart from any Joy and having thus contracted unto himself an Epitomy of the Worlds glory he might well ask What can the man do that cometh after the King yet this King confesseth that when he had looked on all the works that his Eccl. 2. from ver 1. to ver 13. hands had wrought and on the labour that he had laboured to do behold all was vanity and vexation of Spirit and there was no profit under the Sun. Believe it if Solomon whom both Nature and Art so highly conspired to divert and please yet Nauseated all as Vanity 't were but common Prudence in us to set our Hearts at rest who have neither the thousandth part of Solomons Grandeur nor of his Wit neither to improve the small stock we have to the best advantage Yet say we had all the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them as they were most artificially drawn to the life in a tempting Landskip presented by Satan to our Saviours Imagination yet since all that is in the World is but either the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes or the pride of life i. e. Pleasure Riches and Honour as we are told by S. John who liv'd long enough in the World to know what it afforded 'T is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Grand Fundamental Error and folly of our whole lives to look for any happiness in the Enjoyment of them Human Beatitude consists in the gratification of those Faculties which make Man i. e. Intellect and Will the perfective qualifications of which are Truth in the Understanding and Rectitude or Holiness in the Will. Now could any of the fore-mentioned Enjoyments make a man either more Wise or more Vertuous than his Neighbour Could they secure us from being impos'd upon by false Notions Ignorance and Error and Enlighten the darkness of our Minds with clear Conceptions of Truth that Secret of the Most High GOD with certain knowledge of the admirable Works of Nature and GOD the Mysterious Author of them or with Prudence in the rational Conduct of our Actions which would be the Glory and Ornament of our Understanding Could they redeem us from the shameful Captivity of sordid Appetites and Vile Affections which like Rebel Vassals dethrone the Sovereign Goodness that should Reign within us Could they restore again that generous Magnanimity Temperance Justice and Universal Complacency in what is good and honourable to its Empire in the Soul which would be the