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spirit_n body_n soul_n whole_a 13,673 5 5.8632 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A18615 The Best choyce a funerall sermon / published at the desire of some of the friends of the dead. 1607 (1607) STC 5141.7; ESTC S288 17,327 59

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THE BEST CHOYCE A Funerall Sermon Published at the desire of some of the friends of the Dead Psal 116.15 Right deare in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints LONDON Printed for C. B. dwelling at the Swan in Pauls Church-yard 1607. THE BEST choyce A Funerall Sermon Philip. 1.23 Desiring to be loosed and to be with Christ which is best of all THis Text that I haue chosen being considered as it standeth here related is but a part of a sentence For in this verse with the 22. going before and the 24. following the Apostle consulteth of two things set before him whether hee maye choose not of any inconstant lightnesse neither of any discontentment but because he seeth in either thing good cause to desire it The two things whereof he consulteth whether to choose are life and death in which consultation most men would quickly resolue For many desire life with any conditions as Augustine truly affirmes in one of his Sermons saying Longam vitam etiam malam pene omnes volunt habere all men welnie desire a long long life though euill and troublesome The commoditie of life for which the Apostle can bee content to choose it is the profitable seruice that hee might doe to the Church This he mentioneth as drawing his desire after life in the 24. verse saying Neuerthelesse to abide in the flesh is more needefull for you Where note by the way what it is should make thee desirous to liue in this world onely to profit others and to do the office of a good seruant among thy fellow seruants The commoditie of death for which hee wisheth that is the fellowshippe of Christ in heauen so to be obtained This hee mentioneth as drawing his desire after it in the wordes of my Text saying Desiring to bee loosed and to bee with Christ which is best of all Where note I pray you what is the hope desire of the godly in their death namely to be gathered to their Sauiour If wee consider these wordes apart singled from the rest of the Epistle they containe a perfect instruction concerning the death of true beleeuers wherein are these three things First that death is a thing of the godly to be desired in these words Desiring to be loosed Secondly that the godlie are gathered by death into the companie of Iesus Christ in heauen which is the thing that maketh their death to be so much to be desired in these wordes and to bee with Christ Thirdly that the fellowship of Christ which the godly obtaine after death is the greatest happinesse that can bee desired or obteined in these wordes for that is best of all This Text I haue chosen at this time for this reasō We are come togither to cōmit to the groūd the bodie of a seruāt childe of God who with all his hart desired to be dissolued Who desired his dissolution with the same reason for which the Apostle desired it namely that hee might be with Christ and desired this fellowshippe of Christ with the same iudgement with which the Apostle desired it because hee knew that to be best of all By the handling of this text you shal see the wisedom of of his choice and his desire and so I hope bee drawen with desire and iudgement to wait for the day of your dissolution that you also may bee gathered to Christ which is best of all Desiring to be loosed eis to analusai for so the Apostle describeth death to bee an vnbinding and loosing of man that the soule set at liberty from the fetters of the flesh may return to his Creator freely Which it cannot doe so long as it is shackled here in the body And this description of death is most conuenient both to confute all Sadduces and also to instruct vs howe to iudge rightly of death Euery childe of man is compounded of these two parties of an humane body that is as the house and dwelling and of a reasonable soule that is the tenant dwelling there So are wee taught in the historie of the first mans creation Gen. 2.7 The Lord Gad made the man of the dust of the ground there is the body the house of clay and hee breathed in his face the breath of life That is saith Tremelius Animam vitalem elementari corpori inspirauit by inspiration hee placed a liuing soule in his elementarie bodie and the man was a liuing soule so soone as these two partes beeing ioyned together the man liueth And that which we cal death is no thing else but the dissoluing of this composition and the seperating of these two parts that the soule may be loose and at liberty to returne vnto God as Salomon describeth death in Ecclesiastes 12.7 Dust returneth to earth as it was and the spirit returnes to God that gaue it Death is not the destruction eyther of the whole man or of any part of him as many suppose that say in the Booke of Wisedome 2.2 Wee were borne at all auenture and hereafter wee shall bee as if wee had neuer beene For the breath is a smoke in our nosthrills and the words are a sparke raised out of the heart which being extinguished the bodie is turned into ashes and the spirit vanisheth as the soft aire Thus foolish men thinke that in death they perish and come to nothing and die as the beasts doe And of this opinion in the Church of the Iewes were the absurd Saduces who beleeued no resurrection to come of the body and therefore thought that the body perished in death And they beleeued that there was no spirit seperated from flesh no such inuisible and spirituall creature and therefore thought that the soule perished in death Their absurd opinion is recorded in Acts 23.8 The Sadduces say that there is no resurrection nor Spirit nor Angel But we beleeue and teach contrarie to all Sadduces both the immortality of the soule remaining after death and also the resurrection of the flesh at the last day For the soule of Lazarus being dead ascended to a place of comfort Luk. 16.22 And all that are in the graue which is the receptacle of our dead bodies shall at the last daye heare the voyce of Christ sending forth his Archangel with the sound of a Trumpet and they shall come forth to iudgement Ioh. 5.28 So that neither body nor soule in death perisheth and ceaseth to bee and death is no destruction of man but the loosing of the Spirrit out of the prison of the flesh and a dissoluing of man into his parts as the Apostle here speaketh desiring to bee dissolued Wherein it behoueth no man to bee an agent to loose himself as they which lay violent hands vpon themselues but we must all be patients and wait vpon God till he that tied the knot of life in thee vntie the same The Apostle to bee with Christ desired not to lose himselfe but to be loosed Desiring to be loosed The Apostle in these words