Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	death_n	die_v	sting_n	7,584	5	12.3979	5	true

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

a Christian in this case concerning Christ Whom have I in death but thee and there is none in life I desire in comparison of thee The comfort of life is in the knowledge and the profit of death is in the fruition of Christ if we be without Christ it is hard to say whether is better to live or die the truth is both are hurtful whilst life will prove an increase of sinne and death sends to torment but if Christ be ours both will be to our advantage according to that of the Apostle All things are yours whether life or death things present or things to come all are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods 2. But because all Greek copies divide the verse into clauses and as Zanchy well observeth it is not safe to recede from the plain reading of the Text unless necessity compell whereas here the verse being read according to the Originall is more full and no lesse true I shall adhere to our last as the best Translation and so much the rather because in this construction it holds well in connexion both with what praecedeth and followeth Therefore his expectation was that Christ should be magnified and he not ashamed whether he did live or die because if he lived it should be Christ if he died it should be gain and so no cause in either of shame to himself but from both there would accrue honour to Christ Again therefore he did not wot what to choose whether life or death because to him on the one hand to live was Christ and on the other to die was gain To look upon the words in themselves you have in them some things supposed and some things proposed The things supposed are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as a presence of life so a certainty of death The things proposed are the dedication of his life to Christ and the advantage of death to himself Of the former more briefly Of the later more largely 1. To live to die are the things supposed the one common to all others with S. Paul the other common to S. Paul with all others First S. Paul lived so doe all men so doe all animals what our Apostle saith of bodies I may of life There is a naturall body and there is a spirituall body so there is a naturall and there is a spirituall life this is an hidden but that a manifest life this an inclosure but that a common it is common to Heathen with Christians to beasts with men the little ant the crawling worms have a share in life as well as we so that these may say as well as S. Paul To me to live why should we be so much in love with or dote upon this life which we have no more interest in than the meanest living creature indeed it is a mercy for which we ought to be thankfull it is a talent which we are to improve but it is no priviledge wherein we should glory whereof we should boast or wherewith we should be too much affected Secondly As S. Paul lived so he made account of dying Others live as well as he and he must die as well as others The {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is as certain as the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as sure as we live we must die man is no lesse subject to perishing than the beast yea the good man hath no more exemption than the bad for so the Prophet Esay asserts The righteous perisheth Indeed our Apostle elsewhere calls righteousness a breast-plate but it is not death-proof and though it delivereth in yet not from death It is true death is the wages of sin but still it is here the lot of a Saint perfect innocency should not have known mortality but grace in the best is mixed with that sinne which bringeth death Christ I grant hath taken away death but so as he hath taken away sin for the present onely in part not fully sin is taken away ne praesit death ne obsit the power and guilt of the one the sting and venome of the other but neither ne sit not the beeing of either And indeed it is not without manifold reason that Divine Providence hath so ordered it 1. That the members may be conformable to their head we may follow Christ the same way of death in which he hath gone before us to glory 2. That by the pulling down of the wall the mosse may be fully-plucked out and by the dissolution of the body its infirmity and frailty wholly purged away 3. That the power of God may appear the more glorious in raising us up after death hath layd us in the grave and the grave turned us into dust 4. Finally That the strength of our faith might appear the more in believing we shall live though we die For these Reasons the wise God hath appointed his own children to walk through the valley of the shadow of death To carry it yet one step further and that in a few words it is no other than S. Paul who was not onely a Christian but an Apostle who taketh it for granted that he must die neither the word nor the work of righteousness can secure from death Prophets Apostles Ministers as well as others are mortall and must die Indeed they are according to our Saviours metaphor the lights of the world but such as after a while may be blown out by a violent however must go out by a naturall death Clouds they are from whom the rain of instruction falls upon the people but at length they themselves vanish away Finally Angels they are in respect of their Office but still they are Men in regard of their nature and must die like men S. Paul himself hence supposeth it as a thing which sooner or later would befall him And so I have given a dispatch to the first passe we on to the Next and principall part of the Text the things that are proposed concerning the things supposed which accordingly are two namely Christ the scope of the one and Gaine the attendant on the other which when I have viewed severally I shall look upon them joyntly and so put a period to my discourse on this Scripture To me to live is Christ is the first Propsition to be discussed It is that which according to that twofold life a Christian leads namely spirituall and temporall is capable of a threefold interpretation 1. Many of the Fathers understand this to live in a spirituall sense and so this phrase To me to live is Christ is made Synonimous with that of this very Apostle elsewhere Christ liveth in me To this purpose is that Paraphrase of devout Anselme upon this Text That by which I live is Christ I live not the old but the new man And of eloquent Chrysostome I live not a common life but

resembleth death to an haven into which when the ship enters she is past all the danger of rocks of sands of waves or windes to which she was continually lyable upon the tumultuous seas Indeed death is that which delivereth our bodies from pains and aches our eyes from tears and our hearts from sorrows and in this respect S. John calls them who die in the Lord blessed because they rest from their labours to wit all labour both of minde and body with which here they are oppressed The truth is many are the afflictions as of all men so especially of the righteous in this life They are sure to meet with persecution from wicked men for their righteousness sake as the tree is beaten with sticks for its fruits sake yea such is the rage of persecutors that they care not to what sorrows of hunger cold nakednesse imprisonment banishment want they expose them besides Almighty God is pleased to chastise them for whilst he lets others alone in sinne to exercise their graces by adversity whilst others enjoy prosperity but when death comes it sets them free from all as being the last chastisement which God doth inflict upon and the last mischief which wicked men can doe to the godly But these are the least of those evils from which death delivereth a believer there are evils of another an higher nature and as the sense of them is a sadder trouble so the deliverance from them must needs be a greater gain such are divine dereliction Satanicall temptation the wickeds conversation and sins infection 1. In this life the godly are oft-times enforced to goe mourning all the day long because God hideth his face many clouds interpose that they cannot behold the Sun of righteousness shining on them but when the winde of death cometh it bloweth all these clouds away and puts them in such an estate wherein there shall be no interruption of their comfort 2. Whilst we live on earth we must expect assaults from hell we walk here amongst snares nor are we at any time or in any place secure from Satans suggestions but death puts us out of his reach whilest our souls soare aloft and so are like the flying-bird out of the compasse of his snare 3. How we are forced to be as lillies among thorns wheat among chaffe and being thus mingled with the wicked we complain with David Woe are we that we must dwell in Mesheck and in the tents of Kedar but when we die we shall be separated from the ungodly so that they shall no longer be to us as the Canaanites were to the Israelies Thorns in our eyes and Pricks in our sides 4. Finally so long as we continue in this world the bur of corruption will cleave to us but death rids us of it according to that of S. Paul He that is dead is free from sinne In this respect death is fitly called by S. Ambrose Vitiorum sepultura the grave of our sins And by Gregory Nyssen {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the expurgation of wickednesse since till the vessell be broken the muddy water of corruption cannot be wholly poured out Consuit the experiences of the Saints and you shall finde them still complaining of spirituall conflicts with their corruption We are besieged on every side as S. Cyprian observes and Oh how often is a breach made upon us if covetousnesse be knocked down lust riseth up if lust be quelled pride starteth forth if pride be subdued anger exasperateth thus are we forced to a continuall strugling with our sins but when we die the combate ceaseth and as for the present we are not under sinne so then we shall be without sin or so much as the motions of sin Indeed it very observable that as death came in by sin so sin goeth out by death filia devoravit matrem the daughter destroyeth the mother nisi primi parentes peccassent non morerentur peccarent justi nisi morerentur had not our first parents sinned they had not died if we did not die we should not be without sin sin delivereth to death and death delivereth from sin and so that which was onely the punishment becomes the period of sinfull evill And surely as S. Ambrose occasionally speaking of these words saith Lucrum est evasisse incrementa peccati lucrum fagisse deteriora ad meliora transisse it is no small gain to avoid the increase of sin nay our Apostle uttereth these words saith S. Cyprian Lucrum maximum computans jam seculi laqueis non teneri jam nullis peccatis vitiis carnis obnoxium fieri accounting it the greatest gain no longer to be subject to the sins of the flesh and intangled in the fetters of the world indeed this is as in it self so in the estimation of every godly man the chiefest gain and no wonder if accounting sin to be the greatest evil he esteem this the chiefest priviledge of death more rejoicing that it putteth an end to his sinnings though they were never so small than to his sufferings were they never so great In fine death is both a totall and finall deliverance from all evils except it self from which also we shall be delivered by the resurrection in which respect an Antient saith elegantly It is unjust to call it a death rather a recesse from death a separation from corruption a freedome from bondage rest from trouble ease of labours ut in summa dicam omnium consummationem malorum yea the consummation of all evils And yet in all that I have said I have told you but one half and that the lesse half of deaths gain there is not onely ademptio malorum but adeptio bonorum a removall of evil but the presence of good and so positively To die is gain For though the happiness of our persons doe not presently follow upon death but the resurrection yet there is an happiness conferred upon our souls immediately after death and if you would know wherein this consists I answer 1. When we die our souls goe to paradise a place of rest and joy and comfort Our first parents were cast out of paradise that they might die and we die that we may goe to paradise The Poet saw this when he said Parte tamen meliore mei Though my body rot in the earth yet my better part shall be carried above the skies Indeed the souls of them that depart hence in the Lord are immediately received into those celestiall habitations 2. When we die our souls go to God and Christ in whose presence is fulness of joy this is the reason why Gregory Naz calls death a benefactour because it presently sends us to God our Apostle in the next Verse save one tells us He had a desire to depart and to be with Christ thereby plainly intimating that when be did depart hence he should be with Christ to wit in his soul and

quia sciebat non peccasse non flevit David justly bewailed dead Absalom because he died in his rebellion and therefore despaired of his blisse but when the other childe dieth he drieth his eyes as not doubting its happinesse They indeed cannot sufficiently be lamented at their death who dying in their sins drop into hell not they who are carried into those heavenly mansions saith Isidore excellently 2. Let the gain of death mitigate the fear which is apt to arise in us from the apprehension of our own When Abigail told Nabal the threatning words of David the Text saith His heart died within him and became as a stone Thus is it with the most of us when any summons of death is given nay not onely with the most but even sometimes with the best Christ cometh to the Disciples on the Sea to preserve them from the storme and they are troubled death cometh to deliver us from all evill and we exceedingly tremble Indeed the reason is because we consider not that death is a deliverance and so gaine to us What Chrysologus saith of Martyrs is true of all good men Morte nascuntur fine inchoant occisione vivunt in coelis lucent qui in terris putabantur extincti their death is a birth and end a beginning they live by being killed and whilst they are thought to be extinguished on Earth they shine in Heaven and surely were this well pondered by them they would not seek consolation against death but death it selfe would be their consolation Those words of Job I have said to Corruption Thou art my Father to the Worme Thou art my Mother are not unfitly allegorized by Origen to this purpose Ut pueri consolatores habent parentes sic ego mortem putredinem as if he therefore called Corruption and Wormes his Father and Mother because as Parents are comforters to the Children so were they to him It is true the Separation of Soule and Body is terrible and a naturall feare of it may be cannot but be in all I but it is as true in respect of the godly that when this separation is made anima absolvitur corpus resolvitur quae absolvitur gaudet quae resolvitur nihil sentit as St. Ambrose elegantly the Soule is set at liberty and rejoyceth yea the body is at rest and knoweth no trouble and is such a separation to be feared This life what is it but a going to death and death what is it but a going to life little cause then sure why we should either too much love the one or feare the other Non est timendum saith Tertullian quod nos liberat ab omni timendo shall that be the object of our feare which freeth us from what ever is to be feared by death we gain glory and shall we not glory over death non repuerascam said a Roman si Deus mihi largiretur I would not be young againe though God would grant it me and he giveth this reason quia ab hospitio ad domum discedam because when I dye I shall goe from my Inne to my home Did ever childe cry when his Fathers man came to fetch him home Alas beloved as St. Ambrose rightly non mors ipsa terribilis sed opinio de morte not death it self but our misapprehension of death is terrible to us did we look through beyond death at the gaine which followeth it would not be dreadfull but amiable in our eyes and with this holy Apostle we would not feare but desire to depart That of the wise man the righteous hath hope in his death the Caldee reads The righteous hopeth he shall dye so farre is a good man upon serious meditation of deaths gaine from fearing of that he hopeth for his dissolution and though he dare not rashly hasten yet he willingly entertaineth it whensoever sent by God to him To draw to an end Be pleased to put both clauses together since indeed they cannot be asunder If to us to live be Christ to dye must needs be gaine to dye cannot be gaine but onely to them to whom to live is Christ If a good life precede an happy death cannot but follow Nor is it probable a gainfull death should be the consequent if a religious life have not been the antecedent Indeed if we observe the temper of many in the world we shall finde them either inverting or separating these clauses 1. Some there are who would invert these words make gain the predicate of the former and Christ of the latter thus doth every covetous man say To me to live is gain and to dye is Christ vaine men who will have Gold to be their God and yet Christ to be their Redeemer they will serve Mammon whilst they live and yet be saved by Christ when they dye but it will be just with Christ to say at death to all such Mammonists in these words of God to the Israelites in the day of their distresse Goe to the Gods which you have served the gaine which you have lived to and let that deliver in this houre of your death 2. More there are who would sever these Clauses whilst they would gladly say to dye is gaine but not to live is Christ One was asked whether he had rather be Craessus or Socrates his answer was in vitâ Craesus in morte Socrates he would be rich Craesus in his life and good Socrates at his death you know whose prayer it was Let me dye the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his and it is that no doubt which many wish and desire nay hope who yet regard not to live the life of the righteous and that their course to that end may be like his But what a folly nay madnesse is it for men to expect to reap what they doe not sow to sow to the flesh and to the world and yet reap by Christ the gaine of everlasting life after death as therefore we expect that one let us endeavour the other and if gaine by death be our hope let living to Christ be our practice So that this Scripture thus considered doth plainly put a difference between the pretious and the vile the godly and the wicked whilest to these who live to themselves death is a losse to those who live to Christ it is a gaine Adrian was wont to say that death is pavor divitum pauperis desiderium the rich mans feare and the poor mans desire I may well apply it here death either is or may be the bad mans feare but the good mans wish or to use St. Ambrose his expression justis mors quietis est portus nocentibus naufragium it is an Haven to the Just but a Shipwrack to the Guilty to those a bed of repose to these a rack of torture The man who liveth to the world saith to death as Ahab to Eliah Hast thou found me oh

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