Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A67572
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A sermon preached before the peers, in the abby-church at Westminster October 10, MDCLXVI / by Seth Lord Bishop of Exon.
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Ward, Seth, 1617-1689.
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1666
(1666)
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Wing W828; ESTC R10647
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21,004
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34
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and with Thousands of our Brethren who were better and more righteous than we Let us once more then return into our selves Let us consider our condition let us veiw over and ballance the grounds of our hopes and the reasons of our fears Let us take an exact account of our whole estate and interest in reference to all our concernments National and Personal Temporal and Eternal Let us deliberate and advise what is to be done and what to be avoided Did I say deliberate Whether we shall save our souls from utter darkness and everlasting burnings Whether we shall save the Nation from final ruine and desolation Nay rather Let us break off our sins by repentance and our Iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor Let us make our selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that-when we fail we may be received into everlasting habitations Let us lend unto the Lord that we may have treasure in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt nor theives break through and steal Let us fast the fast that the Lord hath chosen Loose the bands of wickedness feed the hungry cloath the naked he that hath two Coats let him give to him that hath none and he that hath meat let him do likewise Such an occasion scarce happens in many hundreds of years and for motives to charity they are all comprised in that great argument of the Judgment to come When the Son of Man shall come to Judgment and shall sit upon the Thnone of his Glory When all Nations shall be gathered before him and he shall set the Sheep on his right hand and the Goats on his left This shall be the mark of their discrimination He shall say to those on his right hand I was hungry and ye fed me thirsty and ye gave me drink naked and ye cloathed me sick and in prison and ye visited me Come ye blessed of my Faiher receive the Kingdom prepared for you And he shall say unto them on the left hand I was hungry and ye fed me not thirsty and ye gave me no drink c. Wherefore go ye cursod into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels The way is short and compendious to save all our interests What doth the Lord require of us but to do justly to love mercy to walk humbly before the Lord our God Let us be merciful therefore as our heavenly Father is merciful and let us humble our selves under the Almighty hand of God as we pretend to do this day Let us betake our selves afore-hand to our Judge and pour out our complaints before him Let us confess our wickedness and be sorry for our sins Let us lay hold on the feet of our Blessed Redeemer and give him no rest till he hath sealed our pardon Let us bathe with our tears the wounds that we have made Let us cry mightily to the Throne of Grace Let us wrestle and strive with our Redeemer and not les him go until he bless us Until he open our eyes to see the dangers we are in and through his mercy shew us a way to escape them Till he quicken us up to resolutions of amendment and carry us strongly through these resolutions Until he heal our back-slidings and make up our breaches Until he save our souls from death and our Nation from destruction To work our selves to these Resolutions and to fix us in them to make them abide upon us all our days let us remember what hath been spoken and let us frequently meditate upon that Sarcastical Concession of the Text Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee in the days of thy youth walk in the ways of thy heart and the sight of thy eyes But know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment FINIS I. II. III. IV. V. VI. Applic. general Esai 66. 15. Applic particular Esai 9.
why art thou so drowsie O my careless soul and why art thou so secure within me What strange Lethargy hath seised on thee Awake thou that sleepest and Christ shall give thee light The time of thy dissolution is a coming and after death the judgment Retire therefore a while into thy self and commune with thy heart Enter thou into thy Closet and shut thy Door upon thee Let us examine our selves before we come to that strict Examen Let us make a Judgment of our expectation before we come to Judgment Do we believe a Judgment will come Then how are we provided against that Day Are our accounts ready Art thou able to stand in Judgment Shalt thou be clear when thou art judged When Paul reasoned before Felix concerning the Judgment to come Felix trembled and because it was an unpleasant argument he put him off to another time There is no doubt but our treacherous hearts would gladly put off these Considerations and deferr them to a more convenient season Nay but there is no time so convenient as the present when we are wrought into some apprehension of Judgment If we stay till our present thoughts are over we shall again be brought to lose the apprehension to forget the import and moment of the Judgment we shall come again to hear the Name thereof and to neglect it as an idle Noise and empty Sound Let us therefore not neglect this opportunity Let us search our selves to the bottom Let us make a discovery of our final Resolution and secret Reserves in reference to Judgment We profess openly to believe that Christ shall come with Glory to judge both the Quick and Dead What are our inward thoughts in that particular and how are we provided against the Day of Judgment There is a Judgment to come that Judgment terrible the Examination strict the Condemnation insupportable and most of us utterly unprovided yet for all this it 's possible it may be avoided All these things are true in Judgments here below and we see the proof of them at every Assizes yet all Offenders are not brought to Judgment but many Thieves and Murderers escape it It may be thus in the Judgement to come 't is possible it may be avoidable A miserable hope if this be all for Thou shalt be brought to Judgment That 's the second Proposition And it contains the Universality or Particularity of the Judgment which you please thou and every man singuli generum genera singulorum all sorts of men and every man of every sort from Him that sitteth on the Throne to Her that grindeth in the Mill For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ. It is appointed for all men once to die and after death the judgment Death shall deliver up our Souls to the first and Death shall deliver up our Bodies to the second Judgment The Grave shall deliver up her spoils and the bodies of all men devoured of Beasts consumed of Fire swallowed by the Sea scattered to the four Winds in a moment in the twinckling of an eye shall be brought to Judgment And here shall I bewaile the infirmity or inviegh against the negligence of us Men that suffer our selves to be hurried he adlong by the power of our imaginations against the striving of our consciences that suffer our Senses to carry away the crown from our Understanding and give over our selves to the impetuous stream of our passions That when we have a full information a compleat judgment a clear dictate of conscience we will suffer all these to be overborn in us by the Idola Specûs tribûs c. which are brought into our imaginations That having clear and evident Principles we can yet doubt of their immediate consequences or whilst we profess an universal truth never descend to think of the particulars We know there is a vast difference between the things present and those to come and yet we form our thoughts of those according to the analogy of these deluding our selves with idle and childish imaginations God keeps silence we think he is such a one as we Vengeanc is not presently executed we set our hearts to do wickedly We profess that all men must die and come to judgement yet ve do not really believe that we our selves shall die and come to judgment This is the fountain of our misery and the original of our spiritual miscarriages the discovery of the causes and remedy whereof lies deep in the Philosophy concerning Humane Nature but the thing it self is of every days observation we may recount it in these authentical examples David knew full well what belong'd to Murder and Àdultery and what himself had done in the matter of Uriah yet he cried not out that he had sinned till Nathan had charged him Thou art the man Abab undoubtedly had read the Law of Moses and knew the guilt of Marder and Oppression yet he goes on triumphantly he kills and also takes possession but when Elijah charges him home In the field of Jezereel shall Dogs lick thy blood even thine then he cries out Hast thou found me O mine enemy 1 King 21 and having applyed things to his particular he Rent his cloaths and put on sackcloth he fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly Once more 'T is likely Belshazzar had a general Judgment and an universal Maxime in his mind That it was unlawful to spoil the House of God to plunder those things which were dedicated to the Lord and to debauch in the bowles of the Temple and probably he had seen the hand writing of the book of God to that purpose yet all this does not restrain him But when the Fingers write upon the VVall Mene Mene c. thou art weighed c. then his countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him the joynts of his loyns were loosed and his knees smore one against another This then is the Office of this second Proposition it charges us home it lays down the Universal and it brings it down to the Particular Thou shalt be brought to Judgment Thy Judgment is unavoidable O but then thy Evasion is crossed O my stupid Soul Thou art spoiled of thy frivolous ground of hope Thou shalt surely be cited and thou must appear if thou refuse to come thou shalt be brought to Judgment Return then again into thy self and take a review of thy condition what will the issue be of that Judgment to which thou must be brought What hopes are now remaining that thou shalt not be condemned when the Officers have haled thee before the Judge that thou be not delivered to the Executioners If thou art called to Examination Canst thou elude thy Judge by thy wily answers or Canst thou baffle or suborn the witnesses Canst thou work off thy Jury not to find the Verdict or bribe the Judge to favour thee in thy Doom Canst thou withdraw him from the Rigour of Justice by the mediation of thy