Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	bear_v	good_a	great_a	1,447	5	2.3997	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87060	Lacrymæ Ecclesiæ; or The mourning of Hadadrimmon for Englands Iosiah. Delivered in two sermons, Janu. 30. 1660. at the solemn fasting and humiliation, for the martyrdom and horrid murder of our late gracious King Charles the First, of ever blessed memory. In the church of the borough of Blechingley in the county of Surry. / By Wil. Hampton rector of the said church.	Hampton, William, 1599 or 1600-1677.	1661 (1661)	Wing H634; Thomason E1086_9; ESTC R202530	24,674	40

nature it self is apt enough to shew it self upon all occasions of this nature In mourning for our near relations we are more apt to erre in the excess then in the defect to mourn immoderately then to faile in mourning for our friends deceased Therefore let us take heed that we do not exceed nor give too much way to our passion The Apostle doth not forbid all sorrow for the dead but immoderate sorrow That we should not grieve and take on like the Gentiles who were ignorant of the blessed state of the dead that die in the Lord and had no hope of ever seing them again because they were not perswaded of the Resurrection and so mourned out of measure 1 Thes 4.13 I would not have you ignorant brethren of them that are asleep as ye sorrow not even as others that have no hope for if we beleeve that Jesus dyed and arose again even them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him There are four cordials let me give you to moderate and mitigate this sorrow regulate this passion 1. Because it is our common condition death is no new or strange thing but the lot and portion of every child of Adam As by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin so death passed upon all men for that all men have sinned Rom. 5.12 Do we see some friend go before us let us not be too much troubled nothing hath hapned to them but what must happen to us yea to all it is the case of all to die Our Fathers are gone before us and we must follow after them and our children after us one generation passeth and another succeedeth all things are here in a mutable condition and so are we Omnia peribunt sic ibimus ibitis ibunt Demonax the Philosopher seeing one make great lamentation for a friend departed wished him to make enquiry among all that company being very numerous and see if he could find any one who by death had not been deprived of some friend or other which when he did and could find none with the community of the case he comforted himselfe and bridled his sorrow So if by death we have been deprived of Parents or Brethren Husbands or Wives children and Friends let us remember nothing comes to us but that which is common to all and let this restrain us from moderate mourning With this thought David put an end to that sorrow for his child which he so dearly loved But now he is dead wherefore should I fast can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me 2 Sam. 12.23 As if he had said death is common to all I shall die as well as he I must follow him in the way of death the way of all the earth from which there is no returning hither Therefore why should I afflict my selfe any more 2. Because death comes by Gods appointment and determination with him are the issues of death he hath fixed and appointed our time here All the dayes of my appointed time will I waite till my change come saith Job So that God hath set down how long every ones time shall be The number of our moneths years and dayes is with him he hath set us our bounds which we cannot pass Job 14. Indeed to our apprehension many times some are taken away untimely unseasonably suddenly husbands from the wives and wives from their husbands children from their parents and parents from their children some in their youth and sull strength when their breasts are full of milk and their bones full of marrow but let it not seem strange to us Their appointed times were come the will of God is done and we must be content and with patience submit to it 3. Because by death the faithful go to a better mansion and mend their condition they make a happy change they change their mortall for immortality this corruption this earthly house for an heavenly house They are freed from their labours sorrows troubles miseries afflictions molestations of this present evill-world and brought to the desired home of true aest of blisse rnd perfect happiness ut non tam plangendus sit qui hac luce caruerit quam gratisicandum ei quod de tantis malis eraserit saith the Father That he which departed hence in the Lord is not so much to be lamented for because he is deprived of this light as to be rejoyced for in that he is escaped out of such a Sea of misery and landed safely in the sure harbour of endless felicity taken up to the true light 4. Because we have assurance of a joyful Resurrection they that dye in the Lord are not lost or gone from us for ever but only gone before us they are fallen into a sweet sleep and shall for certain awake again rise again at that great day when the Lord Iesus shall shew himself from heaven and change our vile body and make it like unto his own glorious body when we shall enjoy the company and society of our Christian friends in body and soul for ever therefore as the Apostle exhorteth comfort your selves and one another with these words The second Sermon And all Iudah and Ierusalem mourned for Iosiah And Ieremiah lamented for Iosiah c. 2 Chron. 35.24 25. THe third observation which I gave you from this Text which I chiefly intended and aimed at for this day as being most suitable to our present occasion and meeting and which follows now to be spoken of was this That the death especially the violent death of a good King is a ground of great mourning to all good people Iosiah a good religious zealous King being slain in battel the Church and good people among the Jews yea the whole Nation City and Country Prophets and others all the Inhabitants of the Land fall to sad mourning and doleful lamentation This truth is so apparent that it needs not much proof yet it may be further made out upon these accounts 1. The death of any friend doth occasion sorrow and mourning much more the death of a choice friend of a chief friend of a common friend especially if he fall into the hands of merciless thieves and murderers and come to a barbarous and bloody end this must needs be a cause of great mourning to all that did bear any loving respect to him And is not a King a good King a friend a chief and choice friend a common friend to all his good people being the Minister and Vicegerent of God for the punishmen of evil doers but for the praise of them that do well 1 Pet. 2.14 Must not then his death a violent and bloody death unmercifully and unjustly brought upon him occasion sad hearts and great mourning among those who had any spark of goodness and affection towards him 2. A good King is not only a friend but a Father Pater Patriae the Father of his Country and of the

down apace as also are many other Churches within the Land That O shame to Christianity by our great reformers for many years made not only a den of theeves but a stable for horses As the barbarous Turks dealt with that renouned Temple of St. Sophia in Constantinople when they had conquered that imperial City 3. Josiah was a great friend to the Clergy to the Prophets and Ministers of God the Priests the Levites and gave them encouragement in their Service 2 Cron. 35.2 So was our Iosiah a great lover and respecter of Godly and learned men of able and Orthodox Divines a great benefactor to the Universities and Schools of learning the greatest countenancer cherisher and encourager of the Clergy and Ministers of England of any King before him A tender nurse a most propitious Father of the Church Hear his own words in the foresaid heavenly booke Pag. 208. I am so much a friend to all Church-men that have any thing in them beseeming that sacred function that I have hazarded mine own interest chiefly upon conscience and constancy to maintain their rights whom the more I looked upon as Orphans and under the sacrilegious eyes of many cruell and rapacious reformers So I thought it my duty the more to appear as a Father and Patron of them and the Church And again speaking of the harsh deniall of his Chaplains attendance during his imprisoment But my Agony must not be relieved with the presence of one good Angel for such I account a learned godly and discreet Divine and such I would have all mine to be And again As I owe to the Clergy the protection of a Christian King I desire from them the benefit of their gifts and prayers which I look upon as more prevalent then my own or other mens by how much they flow from minds more enlightned and affections lesse distracted then those which are encumbred with secular affaires besides I think a greater blessing and acceptableness attends these duties which are performed as proper to and within the limits of the calling to which God and the Church have specially designed and consecrated some men And lastly Pag. 214 I must confess I bear with more griefe and impatience the want of my Chaplaines then of any other my Servants and next if not beyond in somethings to the being sequestred from my wife and children since from these indeed more of earthly and temporary affections but from those more of heavenly and eternal improvements may be expected What more cordiall expressions could come from a pious soul of love and affection to that calling 4. Iosiah was a great promoter and furtherer of Gods publike and solemn worship that it might be decently and reverently performed as appears by that most famous and solemn Passeover which he kept in this Chapter which was done by his command and to which he contributed upon his own charge super abundantly thirty thousand Lambs and Kids and three thousand great cattell 2 Chron. 35.7 So our Iosiah was a zealous furtherer of the publike and solemn worship of God that it might be performed with all holy devotion decency and reverence not negligently irreverently rudly and slovenly And which is to be pitied and with a fountain of tears to be lamented this his pious zeal for Gods house and worship and Ministers for the true Protestant Religion for the Church and its Patrimony and for the ancient and orderly Government and Discipline therof was the great crime that provoked the Sectaries to hasten his destruction 5. Iosiah was a King unblameable in regard of any notorious personal crime we find him not noted for any remarkeable personal evill as most of the former Kings had been fome are said to be good and some bad but the best of them had their naevus their spots and blemishes we read of Davids Adultery and of Solomons Idolatry but none was stamped upon Iosiah The greatest blemish I can possible discover in him was a little too much wilfulnesse his rash and unadvised rushing into that fattall battell at Megiddon for which the good man paid dear So our Iosiah was of unblameable life more entire and free from any notorious personal crime as searing drunkennesse whoredom or the like then most of the Kings before him no such like as these could be charged upon him even his most bitterest enemies could not taxe him had they espied any blemish no doubt we should have heard it again and again 6. Josiah was a Prince of a soft heart and a tender conscience Thine heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self before me saith the Lord 2 King 22.19 So our Iosiah was of a soft heart and very tender conscience how did his conscience check and trouble him when by restless importunity he had yeelded compliance for plenary consent it was not as he said to the Act for the Earle of Straffords death which in his Iudgement and conscience he could not be satisfied was just by any clear Law he confesseth he did never bear any touch of conscience with greater regret How did he mourn like a Dove and complain of itin the bitterness of his soul How meekly did he mention it with griefe as the main thing troubling him at the time of his Martyrdom acknowledging that the giving way to an unjust sentence might besome cause that the Lord permitted such an unjust sentence to be executed upon him What is it that made him so firm and constant to uphold the Church in her just and ancient Rights Government and Patrimony but his tender Conscience which as also his Oath perswaded him that Epistcopacy with some smal regulations was most Ancient Universall Divine and Apostolical and therefore could not yeeld to the extirpation of that Government and to the alienation of the Church-revenues without wounding his conscience with some stain of perjury sacraledge and impiety This tendernesse of conscience and the immeasurable and unmercifull pressing him against it struck him to the heart and stuck nearer to him then any thing else as we find it at large in his wofull complaints uttered between God and his own soul in his Soliloquies This his tenderness of conscience was a clear evidence of a godly gracious and sanctified soul wicked and ungenerate men feel no such cheeks of conscience at sin Though sin be an unspeakable burden like a talent of lead yet the weight of it doth not trouble them so as to seek ease from the Lord. They complain not with David My sin is ever before me and mine iniquities are gone over my head and are like asore burden too heavy for me to bear The Philosophers observe that no Element is heavy in its own place in the Sea let a man be in the bottom of it although he hath the whole Sea on his back yet he feeles not the weight of it but let him take but a bucket full out of the Sea out of its place and then he shall feel how heavy it is So unregenerate