Selected quad for the lemma: land_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
land_n	lord_n	sing_v	song_n	1,893	5	9.6892	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87802	Abraham's image in one of his sonnes: or, The picture of a good old man, represented in a sermon upon the third of November, anno Dom. 1657. in West-Newton, at the funeral of John Dethick Esquire, father to the late lord mayor that was of London in the year 1655. By William Knapp Master of Arts, of Katherine-Hall in Cambridge, now rector of VVest-Newton in Norfolk.	Knapp, William, d. 1688.	1658 (1658)	Wing K667; Thomason E937_2; ESTC R207740	24,523	44

in the downie bosom of Abraham as heaven is expressed to be Luk 16.23 When children in their parents absence and at distance from their own dear home are evilly intreated at the cruel and merciless hands of strangers how do they double their haste in their retreat homeward in expectation of ease and quiet in their tender Parents bosom where they heare nothing but comfort and remember nothing less then former miseries even so do the Saints of God they know that whilest they are at home in the flesh they are absent from the Lord 2 Cor. 5.6 and in that interim do sit in Captivity as sometimes the Israelites by the waters of Babylon Psal 137.1 and are scornfully made to sing the song of the Lord in a strange land Vers 4. but when they come to dye they know they shall be gathered to the glorious society of Angels holy spirits in heaven where they shall sing uninterrupted Haleluiahs to God and the Lamb for ever and this brings me to the Third and last general observable in the words Thirdly something after Abrahams death He was gahered to his people St. Augustin understands by people the blessed quire of Angels Quaest 226. in Gen. who together with the Saints make up one body reconciled by the blood of Christ Col. 1.20 others understand by the phrase the state of the dead as being aequivalent to sleeping with his fathers being buryed in the dust where all they were and this opinion is not much amiss yet if we would more gently draw milk from the brests of the Scripture we may understand by the words the state of Abrahams soul after death for 't is not said his body was gathered to his people but he was bearing denomination from the better part He that is according to his soul he was gathered to such spirits of just men as were gone before him to heaven from whence we may observe that The souls of men dye not Obs. but after dissolution go to their severall proper places There are certain proper receptacles for the souls of men after death the souls of good men go to their people in heaven the souls of wicked men go to their like accursed crue in hell the souls of good men go to the glorious Pallace of the Son of righteousness as was Christs prayer to his father Iohn 17.24 but the souls of wicked men go into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels and heaven is proper for those and hell for these as Judas is said to have fallen from his Apostleship * Act. 1.25 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to go to his proper place so that the case is very plain that the souls of men dye not with their bodyes and so much is demonstrable not only by that marvelous light which shines from the Sun of righteousness in the meridian of the Scriptures but by that light in the Lamp of the soul which remains unextinguished by the fall of Adam take notice of in the first place the 12. of Ecel 7. then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it note also the 12. of St. Mark 26. where our Saviour told the Sadduces who denyed the resurrection that God was the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob who certainly were alive as to their souls because our Saviour told them that God was the God of the living and not of the dead Vers 27. Note also 2 Cor. 12.2 where we read that St. Paul was caught up to the third heaven but whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell It seems St. Paul thought his soul might have a being either in or out of the body note yet a clearer place than all in 2. Cor. 5.8 where we find that the Apostle desir'd to be absent from the body that he might be present with the Lord. And now if there be any so far drowned in their naturall corruption as to deny the scriptures then let them heare those of their own Tribe averring this truth Pythagoras thought when the soul had left one body it did presently inform another and so ad infinitum most of the Poets beleived an Elysian Field where the souls of good men had a pleasurable repast after death and * in Lact. ● Cicero affirm'd castos animos puros levi quodam facili lapsu ad Deos id est ad naturam sui similem pervolare that chast and pure souls did make their flight to the Gods of whose Divine nature they did participate and thus the very heathen thought nay the immortality of the souls of men is so cleare a truth that the very Devil himself cannot deny it as appears by one of his Prophetesses Sibylla Erythraea in Lactare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They which fear the true God inherit everlasting life and eternally inhabit the most and fruitful garden of Paradise And now my brethren since this is a truth so manifest out of the blessed word of God and by confession of all sides it may be matter of First comfort to some Secondly reprehension to others Thirdly instruction to all First this may be comfort First to such whose dearest friends relations are dead in the Lord as this our friend doubtless is such as they are not amissi onely praemissi not lost or utterly perish'd but sent before us thither whether the Lord grant we may follow for they have exchanged a Hadadrimmon or valley of tears for a glorious seat of pleasures at the right hand of God for evermore Psal 16. they have only left of serving the Lord at a distance and are gone to waite on him at his own court Secondly comfort to such who for conscience sake are under the hands of implacable persecutors who can but kill the * Mat. 10.28 body and are not able to kill the soul and if their bodies only suffer which suffer for an advantage they may be killed but not hurt as a Philosopher once said of a Tyrant occidere potest laedere vero non Seneca he may kill me but he cannot hurt me Julian that bloody Apostate in slaughtering the Christians pretended that if they looked upon their condition as so good after death he did them no wrong to send them the sooner away and truly no more hedid not for he did but send them away from such incarnate Devills as he was unto a glorious company in heaven they were but ground with the teeth of such furious beasts the better to make bread for Angels as saint Jgnatius Thirdly comfort to such who with the holy Prophet in Psal 31.10 have spent their life with grief and their years with sighing for their sins and who have walked soberly righteously and godly in this present world and have been painfull and faithful labourers in the Lords Vineyard having born the heat of many laborious

old age is good as being honourable 2. As 't is profitable Length of years in a good man is not much unlike the long Bagg of an old Usurer out of which may be drawn a comfortable abundance length of years is an old mans treasure out of which he can draw things both new and old as our Saviour speaks of the Scribe instructed unto the kingdom of Heaven Mat. 13.52 Youth is like the spring hopeful for fruits to come middle age like the autumne signifying their maturitie and old age like winter which argues they are reaped and layd up ad varios usus depromendos to be forth coming upon all occasions a good old man hath been so frequently exercising his faith and hope upon the promises of God as he can now rely upon them with a great deale of comfort and complacency a good old man hath been so frequently clothing the backs and feeding the bellies of the poor and fatherfess as he hath now gained himself a throng of friends to make supplication for him Luke 16.9 and to help him in the day of his infirmities Oh my brethren what a great deal of difference there is between old wicked men and old good men They have a long time been sowing the wind and in their old age they reap the whirle-wind as in Hosea 8.7 they sowe vanity and reap vexation of spirit they have been spining of the Spiders web of many vain and triviall pleasures and works of the flesh with which because they cannot * Esa 59.6 cloth themselves they lie the more naked open to the fierceness of divine wrath but these these have been so continually hastning through faith into the great name of Jesus as now they are * Prov. 18. 10. to wer'd in so great a strength as that they are safe against all the batteries of the powers of darkness these have made so faithfull and so fruitfull an improvement of their former dayes that their old age is to them as Mount Nebo to Moses Deut. 34. from whence they can look into the holy Land and see the Lord ready to receive their souls as soon as their bodies which are ripe for dissolution drop to the earth and thus the old age of good men is good to them as being profitable 3. As being pleasurable and delightfull a man would think it strange at the first sight that that age which hath such a ponderous clog of sinfull infirmities and wherein Solomon sayes a man will say he hath no pleasure in it Eccle. 12.1 should taste any delight 'T is true I confess wicked old men having spent their former days in the profanation of Gods blessed name in abusing his creatures to gluttonie and drunkenness and in sheding no other tears for their sinns but those of the tanker have at last nothing but horrors of conscience and preoccupations of Hell being afraid they shall step as soon in there as into their graves which they drawing neer by reason of their age are so much the more in trouble but good old men have such joyous reflections upon the long experience that they have had of the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living how the Lord hath born them as an Eagle upon the wings of his mighty power and delivered them from many dangers which otherwise would have overwhelmed them as they are in their old age comfortably sustain'd with such apprehensions think we that a Souldier having been long in the wars and been led by the gracious hand of God through many difficulties and hazzards of life does not upon thoughts of such deliverances sit down in his old age with comfort certainly if old covetous men can delight themselves in recounting their golden Elizabeths and Iacobus's which they have in heapes before them then how many thousand times more do the Saints of God joy themselves in telling over their mercies which they have frequently been enriched withall and no wonder therefore that the Psalmist in sense hereof breaks forth so pathetically in Psal 104.34 my meditation of him shall be sweet I will be glad in the Lord Beside Conscientia bene acta vitae multorumque benefactorum recordatio jucundissima as Cicere the review of a well spent life and those many works of piety and charity whereby eyes have been given to the blind and feet to the lame and the poor delivered that cryed Iob 29.12 and the fatherless and him that had none to help cannot chuse but solace the heart of an old man and he being sensible of all those blessings which he hath received from God to have been evidences of his loving kindness in this life and but beginnings of more love in the life to come cannot but possess himself with such a joy in the Holy Ghost as shall make his old age pleasurable Use Since then old age is good onely upon these several accounts be therefore carefull in the service of God before hand that it to you may be honourable profitable and pleasurable Alas yeares make no man good of themselves The Latines have a common Proverb and t is true barba non facit Philosophum that specious formalitie and appearance of years is no infallible sign of goodness a man with a beard and no wit showes that he hath more haire than wit and then he is the more contemptible for his but seeming beauty 't is with years as 't is with the outward things of the World they are good non quod bonos faciunt sed de quibus bona facimus August not that they make any man good but that good may be made of them and thus ought we to do and if we grow not better by this gift of God we shall grow worse more hardened in sin more miserable more abominable Solomon in the 25. of Ecclesiasticus reckons up three sorts of men which his soul did hate a poor man that is proud a rich man that is a lyar and an old adulterer that doateth he might have added a forth worse then all a poor old wicked man if a man be old and poor he is like never to be rich and no great matter and if he be old and wicked he is like never to be good but this is sad enough There may be I confess great possibility but very small hopes with many 'T is true he that bore upon the cross all the crimson and bloudie sins of the unconverted part of the lives of the Saints wherein they drew iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with Cart-ropes may bear the many sins in the long life of an old man and through the sent of those Soveraigne waters which come from the Sanctuary of Christs blood the dry bones of their carrion souls may live But Oh! do not such men run a great hazzard in the willingness of God to give them a portion in Jesus Christ after so many grievous repulses of his spirit who hath said I will not alwayes