Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	wonder_n	work_v	world_n	63	3	4.4445	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93724	The wels of salvation opened or, a treatise discovering the nature, preciousnesse, usefulness of Gospel-promises, and rules for the right application of them. By William Spurstowe, D.D. pastor of Hackney near London. Imprimatur, Edm. Calamy.	Spurstowe, William, 1605?-1666.	1655 (1655)	Wing S5100; Thomason E1463_3; ESTC R203641	126,003	320

To expect to dye comfortably and not to live holily is as vaine as for a man to look for stars on earth and trees in heaven To waste the oile of grace and yet to think to be anointed with the oile of gladnesse is the fruit of presumption and not of faith When servants idle out the light that their Masters give them to work by they may well conclude that they must go to bed in the dark And so when Christians do neglect in the day of their life to work out their salvation with fear and trembling it is no wonder if in the night of death they want the light of comfort and have a dark exit out of the world The third Proposition is that the improvement of the promises and the diligent use of all meanes to make our calling and election sure is not onely the ordinary and regular way but doth usually procure comfort in death unlesse it be in foure particular cases First when sicknesses and distempers are violent so as to interrupt and suspend the use of reason it must needs be that thereby also the comforts of grace be so farre eclipsed as to be like starres in a cloudy night which though they be not blotted out of their orbe yet do not shine Who can expect that an untuned instrument should ever make a melodious harmony no more can any man rationally conceive that when the frame of nature is out of order and the organs of the body wholly indisposed to the acts of reason that then the comforts of the Spirit should appeare in their beauty and lustre Now that God oft-times puts a period unto the lives of his dearest children by such diseases cannot be denied For Solomon tells us that All things come alike unto all there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked to the good and to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not Eccles 9. 2. Secondly when temptations and assaults from Satan are like vehement windes which shake the tree though they do not overturn it A man who hath a fair estate of lands may by vexatious suites be so put to try his title as that he may take little pleasure in the revenues and profits issuing from them and so a believer in his combating and wrestling with temptations may so far be disquieted as that though he question not his condition he may yet enjoy lesse satisfaction and present delight in his evidences and assurance then formerly he had Thus Paul after his rapture into the third heaven 1 Cor. 12. 2. was buffeted by a messenger of Satan whereby he was not onely kept from being exalted above measure but also interrupted in the enjoyment of those choice comforts and contemplations which such revelations might minister unto him as may appear by his frequency and importunity in prayer to God to be delivered from this sad conflict ver 8. Thirdly when Christians have intermitted that wonted care and circumspection to preserve their peace and communion with God which formerly they used When they have been more forgetful of God and lesse delighted with his presence then before they were When they have suffered the world to steal away their thoughts and affections from heaven and through a distempered appetite relish more their daily bread then the spiritual Manna When they grow regardlesse of Christs voice and open not their hearts to him who seeks and entreates an admittance then it is no wonder if their Sun set in a cloud and that the horrour of a sad darknesse do take hold upon them that then like the Spouse in the Canticles they complaine that their Beloved hath withdrawn himself and is gone that they seek him but cannot finde him that they call him by all his blessed and gracious names and yet he answereth not Cant. 5. 8. Fourthly When their graces and also their comforts have been already fully manifested both to themselves and others in the time of their life God may in the approaches of death for sundry reasons best known unto himself withdraw his comfortable presence and not fill their souls with those exultations of joy and peace which others might expect to be mingled with their last agonies and expirations in death so as that they should be carried up to heaven in the light of a glorious Plerophory like to the. Angel which ascended in the flame of Man●ahs sacrifice Judges 13. 20. God may do it First to trie and manifest the strength of their faith that though their feelings are not strong yet their faith is not weak that though they see not the crown of blisse and immortality hovering as it were over them and ready to fall upon their heads they yet beleeve that it is laid up for them and that they shall ere long see it and enjoy it together Such faith highly glorifies God and in some respects gives more honour unto him then Assurance which hath a kinde of sense joyned with it That like Thomas sees and beleeves but this sees not and yet beleeves that what God hath promised he will perform Secondly God may do it that others may learn that comforts and manifestations of love in death are not so necessary as grace and therefore not to be dismaied and dejected in their thoughts concerning themselves if they finde not such overflowings of joy and prelibations of heaven it self as some others have had in the time of death All believers though they are heires of the same Kingdome yet have not the same abundant entrance ministred unto them To some the passage is like the going upon a clear and chrystal stream which hath flowery and aromatical bancks on each side of it to others it is like a calme and quiet sea on which as the fluctuations and tossings are few or none so the gales that carry them to the Port are not strong and quick As their temptations are not great so neither are their comforts glorious Thirdly God may do it in judgement to others that such who have known and seen the light of holinesse shining in their lives and yet have not in the least been advantaged by it should not get the least good by their deaths As they have not profited by their graces so neither will he let them be edified by their comforts Carnal men are oft-times more ready to observe the dying of holy persons then their lives because that then they conceive it may be seen what reality there is in that profession which they have made of having communion with God of enjoying his peculiar presence in a differing manner from the world Now they think it will appear whether their faith be any thing beyond a phancy whether their joyes be such as death will not cast a dampe upon as well as upon the delights and pleasures of the world And when their curiosity is unsatisfied in what they expected then they spare not to censure them as deceivers both of themselves and

resemblance in a full and absolute manner being made one with him in an everlasting fellowship of blisse and glory Deservedly therefore may the promises that seale heaven to believers in the other life and begin it in this life be said to make them partakers of the divine nature CHAP. V. The promises grounds of matchlesse consolations in foure particulars FIfthly the promises of the Gospel are truly great and precious in regard of those superlative and matchless consolations which they derive unto beleevers amidst the changes and vicissitudes that they are subjected unto while they are in the body and beare about them both the remainders of sinne and of death In the sad Winter of desertion when the verdure of all other comforts wither and drop like leaves that are bitten with the frost the promises they are Rosae in hyeme Roses that blow in the Winter and do with their beauty delight and with their fragrancy revive the drooping and dejected soul Thy Word is my comfort in my affliction saith David for it hath quickened me Psal 119. 50. In the apprehensions of Gods displeasure with which many times the best of Saints are afflicted even to the drying up of all their moisture they are Aestivae nives the onely summersnowes that coole and allay the scorching heat and make that Christian that was like a parched Wilderness to become like a watered Garden As cold waters to a thirsty soul faith Solomon so is good news from a far countrey Prov. 25. 25. Good tydings from heaven by the Gospel-promises are most welcome in such a condition In the tempestuous seasons of trouble and affliction they are the sacrae anchorae sacred and sure anchors to stay and fix beleevers amidst all tossings to make them ride safely without touching upon the sands so as to be swallowed up in despaire or dashing against the rocks so as to be shipwrackt by presumption Therefore the Apostle calls them a sure refuge to such as lay hold upon them Heb. 6. 18. In the calme and serene times of peace they are Vela candida the onely white spread sailes which filled with the sweet breathings of the Spirit do triumphantly carry on believers to the faire havens of everlasting happinesse Therefore Paul as within Ken of the shore after the custome of the Mariners gives a joyful and triumphant celeusma or shout O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory 1 Cor. 15. 55. And can all or any of these things be affirmed of the best of earthly comforts Surely if we should compare the one with the other we might quickly finde as vast a difference as between a noisome laystal and a precious bed of spices or between a reviving cordial and a dangerous poyson Forestus in his Treatise De venenis concerning poysons reports of a woman that had accustomed her body to poysons by making them her usual food that she had brought her self and her whole constitution to be of the same power as the poyson it selfe was but yet retained so much beauty as that she allured Princes to her embracements and by that means killed and poysoned them Not much unlike this harlot is the world whose delights and pleasures retaine so much of a seeming beauty as to entice many to be enamoured with them but when they are enjoyed by those that eagerly thirst after them they do by their deceitful embracements destroy and kill their lovers There is a poysonful and contagious breath that comes from them which layes the foundation of a lingring and certaine death And who is there that hath inordinately let out his heart unto them that hath not experienced the deadly poyson which abounds in them But that we may the better see how farre the comforts of the promises do excell the comforts of the world let us weigh them in the balance together and we shall quickly finde how greatly they fall short of yielding such real consolations as freely flow from the promises by a due consideration of these foure particulars SECT 1. Comforts of the Promises 1. Pure First the consolations that are derived from the promises do excell in purity the most delightful comforts that are drawne and suckt from the brests of the world The promises are Mulctralia Evangelica the receptacles of the most sincere milke of the Word 1 Pet. 2. 2. they are coelestes utres bottles filled with the choicest and most refined wines they are spirituales aurifodinae the golden mines that are without drosse The milk the wine the gold that the promises do abound with to the nourishing chearing and enriching of believers they are most pure and free from any alloie that might debase them The commendations that Plutarch gives of the Spartans short and weighty speaking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Laconick speech hath no bark is most true of the seven-times tried and refined words of the Gospel they have neither skin nor husk they are all pith and substance But it is farre otherwise with the best of earthly comforts which when sublimated and clarified to the very utmost that art and skill can reach are yet accompanied with an unseparable mixture of dregs and lees which do minorate their vertue and taint their sweetnesse What Crates in Laertius affirmes of the Pomgranate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the fairest Pomegranate there are corrupt and unsavory kernels may justly be applied to all sublunary contentments and delights whatever there are some impurities cleaving unto them by which they cloy as well as feed there is a weft and tang in their farewell that renders them unpleasing as well as a sweetnesse that makes them desirable 2. Full. Secondly the comforts of the promises as they are pure so are they full and satisfactory when the best that the world yields serve rather to provoke an appetite then to fill it to enflame the thirst of desires rather then to quench them to express an indigency in a restlesse motion rather then a complacency in a perfect rest If we could suppose the apple of a mans eye to be as big as the body of the Sun and as piercing as the beams and heat therof from which nothing is hid yet among those innumerable objects that such an eye would behold it could not spy out anything which might be an adequate proportionable good unto the capacity of the soul The good that is satisfactory unto it must have two properties it must be bonum optimum the best and chiefest of goods that it may sistere appetitum fix the appetite there being nothing desirable beyond it and it must be bonum maximum the greatest good that it may implere appetitum fill the appetite and so free it from the vexation of hunger and want Now the top and creame of all worldly comforts are exceeding deficient in satisfying the sensitive faculties and inferiour part of the soul much lesse can they fill with a grateful satiety and contentment the minde which is the noble and supreme