Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	age_n	die_v	year_n	5,152	5	5.0012	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44069	A cordiall against the feare of death delivered in a sermon before the Vniversity of Oxford May 28, 1654 / by Thomas Hodges.	Hodges, Thomas, d. 1688.	1659 (1659)	Wing H2318; ESTC R27407	21,172	40

need not slavishly to fear death I know nature is averse to and trembles at dissolution and the pure and holy nature of Christ did with submission to his fathers will decline suffering and feare dying and it is sufficient for the servant that he be as his Master A naturall ordinate moderate feare of death a Christian may have but yet he doth not slavishly feare death or hell he knows the one cannot hurt him and the other hath nothing in him a haire of his head shall not fall to the ground and not so much as the smell of hell fire shall ever passe on him Christians have no need to fear death it can let it do its worst but kill the body it cannot cast body or soule into hell fire and wherefore then should Christians feare it the shell the body may in death be broken or worm-eaten but the kernell the soul that is untouched the wormes cannot touch that Besides death is a hiding place or Sanctuary to Christians for a time till all the sore calamities of this miserable world are overpast and men in distresse do not fly from but to places and cities of refuge Againe they may look on death as a period of all evill as a forerunner as an in let to all blessednesse a darke entry leading them to the father of lights they find death in the Inventory of their good things 1 Cor. 3.21 22. For all things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world Revel 14.13 or life or death Even so saith the Spirit Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Alacres accedunt ad mortem tanquam ad aerumnarum terminum melioris vitae exordium Corn. Alap They approach death cheerfully as the end of their troubles and the beginning of a better life How unhappy were Christians if they could not dye they would not live alway It is enough say they with Elijah a little altered take away our lives 1 King 15.4 that we may be better with our fathers nay that we may be ever with the Lord which is best of all Vitam habent in patientia mortem in desiderio they are patient of life or content to live but desirous to dye Of old it was grown to a kind of Proverb soli Christiani mortis contemptores Christians were the men who contemned death In the Martyrologie we find Justus and Pastor the one of seven the other of nine yeares of age offering themselves to Martyrdome for Christ A godly man dies willingly though at the stake saying with the first Martyr Stephen Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Act. 7.59 but t is observed by some that the rich fool dyed unwillingly this night saith the text do they require thy soul of thee he would not dye but he must Luk. 12.20 gr Farther Christians are freed by Christ and by his dying from the slavish feare of death and hell or temporall and eternall death For 1 Christ hath destroyed him that had the power of death i. e. the Devill non quod personam aut substantiam diaboli destruxerit annihilârit sed quia ejus regnum imperium destruxit Corn. Alap He hath not destroyed or annihilated the person or substance of the Divell but he hath destroyed his Kingdome and Empire Christ hath despoyled the Devill of that right or power which he sometimes had by permission or sufferance from God to tempt and torment them by reconciling them by his death unto God Now since Christ hath made our peace with God the Devils power to tempt us in this life is much limited and restrained if we be in Christ and his power to torment us after death is totally abolished He hath delivered us from the power of Satan Act. 26.18 from the power of darknesse Col. 1.13 Ita prostratus est saith Calvin speaking of the Devill ut pro nihilo habendus sit ac si nullus foret the Devill is so vanquished as if he signified nothing now as if there was no Devill at all as to believers And Christ conquerd the Devill beat him out of his Kingdome and Empire which he sometimes had over us his Subjects with his own weapon he slew him as it were with his own sword hostem suis ipsius armis confecit Christus saith Beza Christ by death overcame him that had the power of death when he hung upon the crosse See Colos 2.15 Ephes 4.8 he spoiled principalities and powers and when he ascended up on high he led captivitie captive and made a shew of them openly triumphing over them The Devill first got his power to torment us with death temporall and eternall and with the fear and horror of both by tempting us to sin and by that meanes tyrannized over man putting him to death cruelly and malitiously but now Christ became sin for us our sins were laid upon him and he died for our sins and by his death overcame the Devill the great Leviathan did bite at the flesh of Christ or his humane nature sed captus fuit hamo Divinitatis but he was caught by his divinity as with a hook yea the divine power of Christ is such a hook in his nostrills that he can and will hinder him from tyrannizing over and tormenting as formerly he did those that are Christs And truly the Devil hath justly forfeited his power for his malice against Christ and his presumption in setting upon Christ the Captain of our salvation when he once appeared but in the Similitude of sinfull flesh 2. Because Christ hath destroyed the power and dominion of Sin he hath by his death taken away the condemning power and purchased the Spirit to destroy the commanding power of Sin in his so that sin shall no more raigne in our mortall bodyes Sin shall no more have dominion over us since Christ dying for sin hath condemned Sin in the flesh 3. That Christ hath delivered true Christians from the feare of Death appeares in that he hath freed them from the damning power of the Law the strength of sin as to its condemning power is the Law but Christ in this regard as to those that are Christs hath nayled the Law to his crosse yea the law was not made for a righteous man sayth the Scripture 1 Tim 1.9 and such are justified persons by the death of Christ Farther t is said against such there is no law Gal. 5.23 and that we might be yet delivered from all our tormenting feares hear what the Apostle Paul sayth Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ 4 In that Christ by his death hath abolished death to the godly I had all-most said Name and Thing he hath taken away the sting of death he hath beat out the teeth of this evill and venemous beast Death came with open mouth upon Christ like a roaring Lyon as he went down that way but Christ hath slaine the Lyon and now out of the eater comes meat and out of

doth invite the Devill to come to us timor attrahit ad se daemonas And surely it was not without all cause that Vives said Nulla est miseria major quàm metus Burton There is no greater misery then feare No greater misery no rack or torture like it saith another 2. But then to feare all our life time that aggravates the misery and bondage that makes our lives life we use to say is sweet bitter as death yea it causeth some to chuse although they make an ill choice death rather than life The day-labourer waits for the even and then he shall rest the servant for the end of the yeer the Apprentice for his year of Jubile when he is to go out free and the forethought of liberty sugars the bitter cup of servitude to them But alas to be under the terrible bondage of feare without any hopes or expectation of freedome or of redemption all our life time this is a burden which neither we nor our Fathers were ever able to beare Nay in death it selfe I say not that the servant is free from this master when a man dies he rather feeles the evill which he feared than is freed from it And although we must say blessed is he that feareth God alway the Lord of life with a filiall child-like ingenuous feare yet we may say miserable is he that feareth death alway that hard master that cruel tyrant with a servile and slavish feare And so I come to the third and last degree of the bondage 3. To feare Death all our life time is a burden and bondage which is intolerable Under the word Death I shall comprehend with the generality of interpreters not onely temporall death which is the separation of the soule from the body but eternall death also which is the separation of both soul and body from God everlastingly Now to feare death alway is a terrible bondage quid miserius est aut fingi potest said one quam metu mortis perpetuo trepidare Death is cal'd by the Philosopher the terrible of terribles the most terrible evill that can be by Job the King of terrors Joh. 18.14 T is the feare of Kings as well as mean men and t is the King of feares and those who slavishly feare death are the veryest bondmen in the world qui metuunt mortem illi servi sunt ac servili conditione non autem ingenui neque filii Rolloc in loc and so Theoph. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that feare death are the servants of death Not onely his servants we are whom we obey but his servants and vassals we are whom we feare and the little finger of the feare of death will be heavier than the loynes of all other feares and tyrants whatsoever The feare of other evills chastiseth us with whips this with scorpions Death is an evill a great evil and an unavoidable evil and therefore terrible It is usherd in and accompanied and followed with a black guard and train of feares the way and walke of death is very low and darke we read of the valley of the shadow of death Psal 23.4 and in this valley there is too a Lyon yea many legions of roaring Lyons waiting for their prey continually yea certainly many thousands if not millions of men who have gone downe this way have been sore wounded yea cruelly slaine here have lost their lives and their soules here But more particularly death will appeare ghastly and formidable if we consider 1. That it has a venomous and deadly sting t is an old serpent and has a poysonous sting the sting of death is sin and that is terrible Sin is the edge of the sword of this deadly enemy t is the poyson of the Dragon t is a greater enemy to us than death than the Devill than Hell it selfe If sin was not there we should not die or we should not need to feare Death we might easily shake off this viper into the fire and rid our hands of it as Paul did of the viper Act 28. and feel no harme but therefore death is death indeed and hell hell indeed because t is the wages of sin 2. Death will appeare terrible if we consider who impowers death primarily who hath the absolute and supream power of life and death and from whom death originally hath his Commission and that is God The Lord killeth and maketh alive he bringeth down to the grave and raiseth up 1 Sam. 2.6 And truly God is a consuming fire God the supream judge of all the earth and who cannot erre in judgment hath passed sentence upon us according to his holy just and righteous Law and t is deaths part but to be an executioner to execute upon us the judgment written The avenging justice of Almighty God commands death to seize upon the sinner and to teare him in sunder like a Lyon yea to come hissing upon him like a dragon with the sting of vengeance in the mouth of it morcem intellige cum ira Dei conjunctam qualem necesse est extra Christum esse saith Beza T is the justice and wrath of Almighty God which commissionates death to kill Psal 90.11 and destroy and take the spoyle and of Gods wrath t is said according to our feare so is thy wrath our feares may be aboue the wrath of men but the wrath of God is greater then our feares 3. Death is terrible if we consider who has the power of death i. e. not so much a delegate power such as Kings Magistrates have as a power by consequence let us call it so such as an Executioner or an hangman hath over condemned persons to put them to death and that is the Devil v. 14. The Devil may be said to have the power of death either 1. As a tempter who seduceth us to sin James 1.15 and so brings us to death Sin being finished bringeth forth death Theophylact tells us the Devil got the power of death how 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so he i. e. peccatum est fortitudo roburque mortis he got it by Sin Sin is the strength and power of death Or 2ly As an Accuser of us unto Almighty God and urging the Law against us before God continually soliciting pressing this Iudge to doe iustice upon us urging God as the Nobles and Courtiers did Darius against Daniel Daniel 6.12.13.15 that he might be cast into the Lyons den so he that we might be cast into hell the den of the roaring Lyon and out of which we have no hope of deliverance Or 3ly he may be said to have the power of death sicut carnifex habet imperium rotae patibuli as an executioner hath power of the wheel or gibbet therewith to torment men not whom and how he pleaseth but condemned malefactors according to the direction and appointment of the Iudge thus the Devil hath the power of death and surely t is a