Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	death_n	eternal_a	wage_n	6,951	5	11.2154	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02148	Meditations and disquisitions upon the first Psalme of Dauid Blessed is the man. By Sr. Richard Baker, Knight.	Baker, Richard, Sir, 1568-1645.	1638 (1638)	STC 1229; ESTC S100559	70,342	136

place makes it a rule of infallibility Marke the upright man and behold the perfect man for the end of that man is peace And so it is verified here which is said by the Prophet Sorrow may be over night but ioy com meth in the morning And this againe is another advantage of the prosperity of the godly that their sorrow comes but over night when they may sleepe it out and passe it over but their ioy cometh in the morning when they come fresh unto it and have the whole day before them to enjoy it And now if we aske the Prophet what reason he can give of this prospering of the godly Doe not his words themselves answere for him and carry in them the very reason of it For in saying Whatsoever he doth he seemes to intend a godly mans service and in saying shall prosper hee seemes to intimate Gods wages and if this be so then is the prospering as sure as checke for as God is a Lord that lookes his servants should doe their worke so hee is a master that never failes to pay his servants their wages And then if blessednesse be Gods wages and godlinesse the mans service what is this but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very thing the Prophet takes upon him to demonstrate A godly man is blessed And here now we may stand and admire the great bounty of God and consider how good a service it is to serve him and what great wages hee gives his servants for the meanest of them all may reckon upon this that All he doth shall prosper The wages is not stinted by the Master but by the servant that if hee have not prosperity enough hee may thinke himselfe that would bee idle and doe no more for All he doth shall prosper But nothing but what he doth the Prophet promiseth no further for if he doe nothing hee must looke for no prospering But what have good thoughts then and good words no promise of prospering If they followed by doing then are they Praeviae actiones and as part of the doing shall have their reward Otherwise they are but abortives and come not to life to give them capacity for the life of words and thoughts is actuated by the acting And yet even thus the service is so small the wages so great that if it were told us by any but by a Prophet or told us of any but of God we might justly doubt it but hearing it from such a Reporter and of such a Master if we should doubt it now it might justly be said unto us what doubt yee of O yee of little faith Yet it must be observed here though we call it wages that yet it is not so much earned as given being more of favour than of Merit and cannot be exacted though it may be expected For though the wages of sinne be death yet we cannot properly say the wages of godlinesse is life the Antithesis hath not place because our godlinesse hath not weight but eternall life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord. And now if we should aske the world what it saies to all this whether it thinke not these blessings to be farre more worth than all their guilded vanities what doe we thinke would the world answer to such a question We may be sure the world would answer thus it likes the blessinge well and thinkes them all good but one circumstance in them it doth not like that they are all in the future none in the present all birds in the bush none in the hand never a bird in the hand amongst them all Blessed are they that mourne for they are not but shall be comforted The tree is planted by the waters side but beares no fruit yet but will doe A godly mans actions doe not prosper but they shall prosper This delay the world doth not like it cannot away with these future Tenses so much talking of what shall be and nothing of what is and therefore they have a question to aske too the same which the Disciples asked Christ But when shall these things be For if the blessednesse be long a comming it can then come but to this that it may be said A godly man shall be blessed but is miserable and miserable too for God knowes how long Therefore give us the present say they and as Christ also seemes to teach us let Hereafter shift for it selfe This indeed is the Hinge the world still turnes upon and it is a hard matter to take it off But may wee not answer these men as Christ answered his Disciples Non est vestrum nôsse tempora It is not for you to know the times and seasons which God hath kept in his owne hand It may suffice you to know that these things shall be when they shall be is more than the portion of your knowledge comes to It is indeed an earthly question and moved onely by such of whom it is said Earth thou art and to earth thou shalt returne For when wee move such questions we returne to earth for if wee staid with God we should know that as the darknesse and the light is all alike to him so to him the Future and the Present is all one that we may marvell what Saint Peter meant to say A thousand yeeres with God are as a day as though there were a proportion between eternity and time when Esay speakes it out plainly All Nations are to God as nothing and put in the ballance are lesse than nothing and wee may say as well All time is to him as nothing and put in the ballance with Eternity is lesse than nothing And therefore when we meete with these words Will be and Shall be in relation to God we may take them rather as words of order than of time as in order of Nature the tree must first be planted before it can bring forth fruit a deed must be done before it can be rewarded and yet even this order also is in Gods disposing either to divert it or wholly to reverse it at his owne pleasure As in the Garden of Eden there was bearing of fruit as soon as planting of trees this was a diverting of order But when God said Esau have I hated and loved Iacob before they had done either good or evill here was a prospering before a doing and we may say a bearing of fruit before a planting the tree and this was an absolute reversing of order The world therefore must take notice that Will be with God is as much as with men it is and when he saith it Shall be it is as good as if it were already We all know there is to be dies retributionis a day of account and this day to be God knowes how soone sooner perhaps than the world thinkes but certainely sooner than the world would have it and we are sure that this Will be and Shall be shall not exceed that day but how much it shall be sooner

if it had not been for a leafe the tyrannizing waters would have more kept their mindes in the darke than their bodies in the Arke and have drowned them with despaire when they could not with their waves and when the waters overcame all other creatures both men and beasts yet the leafe continued constant to the tree and overcame the waters and as it perished not in the Inundation of the world no more shall it wither in the conflagration of the world But what happinesse can a godly man expect from this similitude of a tree for he can have no more than the similitude will afford he can looke for no more than the tree hath it selfe and where hath the tree any resemblance of happinesse in any thing that is here exprest It hath none in being planted by the watersside for happinesse is Summum Bonum and this at most but Inferium Bonum therefore only good because it serves to doe the tree good it hath none in bringing forch fruit for happinesse is Bonum proprium and this but Bonum alienum for what good is it to the tree to bring forth fruit for others to gather For so the tree shall be no happier than a Bee that makes Honey indeed but for others to eate a godly man shall be no happier than a Sheepe that beares wooll indeed but for others to sheare and for any thing appeares yet a godly man by this similitude is like to lose his happinesse But the Prophet cannot be so much mis-taken the similitude therefore would be better look'd into For there is faelicitas medii and faelicitas sinis there is faelicitas viae and faelicitas patriae and this tree indeede enjoyes them all It hath in this life faelicitatem medii and faelicitatem viae in being planted by the waters side for this moistens cooles cleanses and gives an easie and a happy passage to the journies end It shall have in the life hereafter faelicitatem sinis and felicitatem patriae in bringing forth fruit for this shall not be as the Bee makes Hony for others to eate nor as the Sheepe beares wooll for others to sheare but this fruit shall be for its owne use onely and onely for it selfe to gather For this fruit is that of which Christ saith Your joy shall be full and none shall be able to take it from you Your joy shall be full there is plena faelicitas and none shall be able to take it from you there is secura faelicitas and now the Prophet need not be ashamed of choosing his similitude the godly man neede not be afraid of losing his happinesse But is it not strange to see how contrary the Prophet proceeds here to our expecting for when he propounded his similitude of a tree wee looked he should have begunne at the top boughes which are the highest parts and commonly beare the ripest fruits and hee beginnes cleane contrary at the lowest part at the very roote for indeed although the roote be not seene of men and have no outward glory yet it is the roote that gives the praise to the tree it is the roote the tree may thanke for all he is worth For though the branches bring the fruits yet they are but messengers it is the root that sends them and indeed if there be not a roote of Humility and that roote planted by Grace the aspiring boughes are but sprigs of pride and will never bring forth the fruit of Glory Wee looked hee should have set our tree if not in Torrida Zona in the very fire yet at least in some sunny place as it were by the fires side and hee sets it cleane contrary by the waters side For indeed a tree feares nothing so much as want of moisture it can ill spare the radiancie of the Sunne but it can worse spare the moistning of the water for death hath a spight at nothing so much in any thing as at the humidum radicale the naturall moisture Hee kills more with the drowth of too little moisture than with the drowth of too much heat or cold For this is a dart which death hath from nature all his other darts are from violence and though the water bee externall to the Tree yet when it enters and moystens the roote it becomes radicall And it may not be the least reason why the Prophet sets the Tree which is our symbole of eternall life by the waters side seeing the water seemes the most productive element of life as that which produced the first living creatures that were in the world although we may raise our thoughts yet higher and remember there are waters as well above the Firmament as under the earth and there indeed must the Tree be planted that shall bring forth the fruite of our expected happinesse We looked he should have set our Tree like the Trees of Eden with present fruits hanging upon them and he talkes of tarrying the time till the Tree bring them forth for indeed our Eden is past there was at first no time there therefore the fruits there were not children of time but as soone borne as their parents the Tree but we are in a world of time our Tree will beare no fruit but by the helpe of time and no helpe of time neither till the fulnesse of time come and that is onely in him who came in the fulnesse of time For Christ is our time and our fulnesse of time will bee when wee shall meete Christ full in the aire and bee taken with him into the new Eden where time shall bee no more and where our Tree shall bring forth fruit in the Present tense which shall never fade into Preterperfect tense But seeing the Prophet meant afterwards to make chaffe a similitude of the wicked why would he take a Tree for his similitude of the godly and not rather take wheate as in a plainer opposition and as Christ it seemes upon better advise did take it afterwards Christ indeed tooke wheate for a similitude of the godly but to another purpose the purpose of the Prophet here is to shew the great distance that shall bee of glory betweene the godly and the wicked and in the points of glory we shall finde the wheate to come farre short and to be farre inferiour to a Tree For the wheat though it rise flourishing up yet it riseth out of the ground but the same it was cast into the ground but the Tree of a little small seed riseth up to a substance that one could never have expected such an issue for such a parent The wheate though it rise flourishing up yet it riseth but to a small height as loath to leave the earth too much and afraid to goe too farre from the roote but the Tree riseth up to an eminent height as scarce acknowledging the root from which it springs and farre surmounts all growing things upon the earth The wheat though it rise flourishing up yet it riseth but to a