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	live_v	old_a	4,232	5	5.4475	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87093	The epitaph of a godly man, especially a man of God or, The happines by death of holines in life. Delineated in a sermon preached at the funerall of Mr Adam Pemberton late minister of the parish of St Fosters Foster-lane : who ended this mortall, April the 8th, 1655. and was buried in hope of an immortal life the 11th of the same moneth. / By Nath: Hardy M.A. and preacher to the parish of St Dionis Back Church.	Hardy, Nathaniel, 1618-1670.	1655 (1655)	Wing H720; Thomason E844_15	25,148	39

THE EPITAPH OF A Godly Man especially a Man of God OR The HAPPINES by DEATH OF HOLINES in LIFE Delineated in a SERMON preached at the Funerall of Mr ADAM PEMBERTON late Minister of the Parish of St Fosters Foster-lane Who ended this mortall April the 8th 1655. and was buried in hope of an immortal life the 11th of the same Moneth By NATH HARDY M. A. and Preacher to the Parish of St Dionis Back Church REVEL. 14 13. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me W●ite Blessed are they which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works doe follow them Aug de discipl Christ Tract 1. c. 12. Prorsus confirmo audeo dicere Credidi propter quod locutus sum non potest malè mori qui bene vixerit Chrysost in Psal 114. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} LONDON Printed by J. G. for Nathanaell Webb and William Grantham at the Black Bear neer the little North-door of S. Pauls Church 1655. To the Reverend Mr. John Pemberton Minister of Charleton in Kent Contentment here and Injoyment hereafter Reverend Sir I Am very sensible that this Dedication will revive the memory of your great losse and thereby renew your grief But withall this publication will perpetuate the memory of your dead Son and that may be your comfort Indeed this as I conceive was the chief cause why it was so earnestly desired by many of his friends and this I am sure was the onely reason why it was at length yeilded to by me But truly so pretious is his name that I am abundantly assured it will live though he be dead not onely in the inkie characters of this paper but the tender affections of many hearts The truth is might prayers have prevailed with God for his life he had not yet died and would tears have brought him back from the dead he had again lived What the name of the place was where the Angel of the Lord spake to the children of Israel so that they lift up their voices and wept might justly have been given to that Church upon the day of his Enterrement it was BOCHIM a place of weeping every eye almost bedewing his grave with tears And though in respect of him they were as needlesse so fruitlesse the case being as holy Job observeth farre different between a withered root and a dead man yet as the Jewes said of Christ weeping for Lazarus it might well be said of them Behold how they loved him and doubtlesse he cannot but be remembred by them to whom he was so much endeared This I have thought fit to mention Good Sir as for his honour so your joy at least the mitigation of your sorrow for him who lived so beloved and died so lamented and though he is buried will not be forgotten Yet still that which is and ought to be your greatest consolation is the good hope you have of his eternall salvation on whom having finished his short course in keeping the faith and fighting the good fight I trust the crown of righteousness is already in part and shall be in that day fully conferred by the Lord the righteous Judge And now worthy friend I cannot but take notice of that whereof I am confident you are not unmindfull the various dispensation of Divine Providence towards you and yours Both your hopefull Sons he was pleased to take away in the Morning of their Youth and you have lived to the Evening of Old Age Both their years put together could not make up much above two thirds of those you have already lived to and if it be Gods will may you see many more for the sake as of your surviving Children Grand-children so especially the Church that having expended a long life in Gods service you may at last exchange it for an eternall life in his glory So prayeth Your Truly Loving friend NATH HARDY The EPITAPH of a Godly man especially a Man of GOD PHIL. chap. 1. ver. 21. To me to live is CHRIST and to die is gain WOrds both short and sweet brief and pithy few in expression and large in extension That of Solomon is an ample Epitome summing up the whole duty of man in these two Fear God and keep his commandements That of our Blessed Saviour is a comprehensive compendium comprizing the whole Law of God in these two Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self But loe in this abridgment we are taught both how to live and how to die Quantum in quantillo how much is here folded up in a little what counsell for life what comfort in death doth this Scripture afford Happy is he who so readeth this copie as to write after it vieweth these steps as to tread in them being able to say if not with the same measure yet at least with the like truth of affection and confidence in Christ To me to live is Christ and to die is gain I finde among Expositors a double Version of this Verse 1. Some Modern both Protestant and Popish Interpreters and one among the Antients read this verse as if it were one intire Proposition whereof Christ is the subject and gain the predicate Christ is to me gain both in life and death According to this sense there is a double truth contained in them First That both life and death are gain to a good man In the former verse our Apostle expresseth his confidence that both his life and death should be Christs glory and here that they would be his gain Utraque mihi conducibilia is Theodoret's note both shall conduce to my benefit Ostendit sive vitam sive mortem sibi censuram in salutem so Estius he sheweth that whatever happened whether the continuation of his life or the acceleration of his death it should work for his good in which respect he seemeth to say Nec mori timeo nec vivere recuso as Lapide well glosseth I neither refuse to live nor fear to die In how happy an estate is every holy man to whom no condition cometh amisse prosperity or adversity wealth or want health or sickness life or death Lucri bonus odor ex re quâlibet saith the worldling gain is sweet out of any thing The Saint finds truly sweet gain in every thing Secondly That it is Christ who maketh both life and death gain to a good man It was S. Paul's hope first that Christ should be magnified by him And next that he he should be comforted by Christ both in life and death Unus est Christus qut tam in morte quam in vita nos facit beatos saith Calvin upon the place Indeed Christ is the Christians All in all estares as David said concerning God Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none on earth I desire in comparison of thee so saith

mine Enemy but he who liveth to Christ may say to it as David of Ahimaaz It cometh with good tidings And now my brethren would you on the one hand see the reason why you are so fearfull of death it is because your consciences accuse you that you have not lived to Christ suae quisque conscientia vulnus accuset non mortis acerbitatem we may thank our owne guilty consciences for our feares of death It was not without reason that St. Paul saith the sting of death is sin since death is onely venemous and deadly to them who live in sinne On the other hand would you see the way to a joyfull end would you have comfort in and gaine after death Oh let it be your study to live to Christ It is our Saviours counsell to his Disciples Take no thought for your life let me alter it a little take no thought for your death but for your life let your care be to advance Christ in your lives and it will be his care to confer the gaine of glory and immortality upon you at your death And thus I have finished the Text Time and your expectation hasten me to the sad occasion of this sorrowfull assembly The early and unexpected death of this hopefull servant of Christ in the worke of the Gospel Master Adam Pemberton What S. Paul said concerning Timothy I need not doubt to say of him that from a child he hath known the holy Scriptures being the Son of such a Father who strove to instill into his tender yeares both Religion and Learning It pleased God to bestow upon him many choice naturall endowments of an Acute wit a Ready expression and a good memory He wanted not acquired abilities in the knowledge of Tongues Arts those handmaids of Divinity which none contemne but the ignorant who because they cannot be like others would have others like them and so whilst darknesse covers the Hemisphere they may be thought to have as good eyes as any Besides these naturall and acquired parts I trust and what ever any proudly undertake Man can goe farther he had some measure of supernaturall and infused graces and experienced those saving operations of the blessed spirit on his owne heart Being thus competently nay farre more excellently then many of his yeares furnished for the work of the Ministry he entred into holy Orders and that by the right door preferring the beaten track of venerable Antiquity before the untroden by-path of Novelty And now having undertaken this sacred employment how studious and sedulous frequent and diligent he was in performing it I doubt not but a great part here present can attest Commonly twice this last halfe yeare thrice nay many times oftner within the compass of a week he dispensed the mysteries of the Gospel to the people so that I may truly say he exhausted himselfe his strength his health in this worke as it is reported of Archimedes is quibus obtinuit famam amisit vitam He lost his life by those studies which got him credit So I may truly affirme of him by labouring to gaine Soules to Christ he impaired the health of his owne body and in some sence accelerated his end As thus he did the worke of the Lord laboriously so in some measure sucessefully me thinkes I read in the eyes of many here present their deep sorrow for his losse and that chiefly upon this account the great good and comfort their Souls found in and by his labours yea it pleased God to give him as it were a seale of his Ministry at his last Sermon after which one that had been seduced by the errors of the times came to him humbly acknowledging his own folly heartily blessing God for his instructions and earnestly desiring confirmation by private conference with him And truly I cannot but take notice of Gods great mercy to himselfe in this regard that though he was but a tender plant and so the more apt to be bended any way yea though in this innovating age the ready way to preferment of which young men are usually Ambitious he to turn Novelist or in plaine termes Schismatick yet not consulting with flesh and blood he stood firme in the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints chose rather to side with suffering Truth then prospering Error He owned the Church of England and that as before this last deformed Reformation to be his Mother zealously preaching her Doctrine asserting her Discipline and bemoaning her sorrowes which caused him not many dayes before his death to take up Davids language Redeem Israel oh God out of all his troubles Nor did he onely pity her sufferings and pray for her deliverance but to the utmost of his power he was ready to help her children his fellow brethren and labourers in the Gospel who for her sake are reduced to extream necessity In this respect what St. Hierome said of Nepotian I may of him Caecorum baculus esurientium cibus spes miserorum Solamen lugentium fuit he was a staffe to the blind food to the hungry an Anchor of the afflicted and a comfort of the mourners And now whilst this young Tree was thus growing up in grace and knowledge in favour with God and Man so that they who sate under the shadow of his Ministry promised to themselves much comfort and contentment Alas who can mention it without teares in the spring of the yeare I and of his age the winde of a violent disease blasted him and death removeth him hence to be transplanted in the celestiall Paradice Having spent his life in the Lords worke he ended it on the last Lords day and on that day of rest yet withall of labour to a Minister he rested from his labours So that quem haeredem putavimus funus tenemus to use St. Hieromes phrase we are forced to bemoane his fall with teares who being Elder hoped to have left him a remaining Pillar in the Church of God Some few houres before his dissolution a Reverend Doctor of Divinity his and my very good friend coming to visit him and putting him upon the act of Resignation in yeilding up himself to Gods dispose his answer was That if he might doe God any further service in his Church he was willing to live but if not he was content to submit to Gods will saying in the words of my Text which since he made use of I made choice of To me to live is Christ and to dye is gaine and truly by what you have already heard there is reason to believe that he practised the former and hope that he now experienceth the latter Indeed his death in respect of us was a losse a great losse and that every way His Father hath lost the staffe of his age an observant Child his Wife an affectionate Husband and his Children poor babes whose sorrow is yet to come a carefull Father The Church hath lost an obedient Son