Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	dead_a	life_n	live_v	7,322	5	6.0283	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61998	A sermon at the funeral of the virtuous lady, and honoured, Ann, late wife of Thomas Yarburgh, Esq . Preached on Monday, the 10th day of July, 1682. By Matthew Sutcliffe.	Sutcliffe, Matthew, 1637 or 8-1707.	1682 (1682)	Wing S6205B; ESTC R222127	17,195	23

natures that as the Apostle saith The body is dead already because of sin Rom. 8.10 The Officers and Serjeants of Death Dolours Infirmities and Diseases have seized already upon our bodies and marked them out for lodgings which shortly must be the habitations of death Not only is the sentence pronounced against us Thou art dust Gen. 3.19 and to dust thou shalt return but it is already begun to be executed Our carcasses are bound by the Officers of Death and our life is but like that short time which is granted to a condemned Criminal betwixt his Judgment and his Execution And this brings me to 2. The second thing we have to consider in the Text Man's duration or abode in the world which is very short he is of few days Tho the hope of life may so bewitch us that in our false imagination we conceit there is more solidity and continuance in one year that is before us than in ten that are passed by us the time that is past being vanished like a thought but that which is to come we are apt to think it longer than indeed in experience we shall find it yet the Spirit of God who best knows how short and vain our life is calls the time we have to abide here but a few days And if we judg aright he that liveth longest hath no more for the days that are past are dead already and those that are yet to come are uncertain so that no more is left to us we can be said to live but the present moment which immediately flyes away to give place to another that by a succession of fleeting moments our vain life may be prolonged But that the days of man upon earth are few I shall further shew you by illustrating it in an instance or two 1. Our days are few if they be compared with God and presented to measure with Eternity If the days of our life be set in comparison with the duration of Gods Eternity they bear no proportion to it but vanish in the consideration as nothing Therefore David confesseth unto God Psal 39.4 Thou hast made my days as an hand bredth and mine age is as nothing before thee And in another Psalm he saith Psal 102.25 26 27. Of old O God thou hast laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of thy hands They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old like a garment as a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall have no end And agreeable is that of holy Job Job 10.5 Job 36 26. Are thy days as the days of a man Are thy years as mans days And again God is great we know him not neither can the number of his years be searched out Therefore he is called the living God as St. Acts 14.15 Paul in his Sermon to the Lystrians opposeth to their vain Idols the living God I need not make man worse than he is nor his condition more miserable than it is but could I if I would As a man cannot flatter God or over praise him so neither can he undervalue man Job 7.3 He is made to p●ssess months of vanity But Gods Eternity is interminabilis vitae tota simul perfecta possessio The Living God is a simple absolute and eternal Being There is no similitude will bear any proportion in illustrating this comparison of our days with God A furlong is a great journey to a Snail to a Horse or a Hound it is nothing A Ship with a fair Wind will sail a great way in a day but what is that to the Voyage of the Sun that every day surrounds the world In all these there is an intermediate necessity of place time and motion which belongs not to the infinite Eternity of God Thus we are bounded and bound up with time but God is Eternity and into that Time never entered For Eternity is not all everlasting flux of Time but time is a short Parenthesis in a long Period and Eternity had been the same that it is tho Time had never been at all 2. Our days are few if they be compared with what we our selves shall have after this life They bear no proportion to that Eternity of Joys or Misery which shall succeed them This mortal life is very short if we compare it with the life to come which shall never have an end The difference betwixt this life and that to come is somewhat resembled by the difference betwixt a Lease for years and an Estate in Fee-simple the one runs on still but the other expires at a certain period So are our days but few if we compare them to that eternity of days we expect in Heaven For this corruptible 1 Cor. 15.53 must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality There is Eternity which hath neither beginning nor end which is the duration of God and there is Perpetuity that which the Scripture calls everlasting Life the state of our Souls in Glory This hath a time to begin but it shall out-live time and be when time shall be no more Now what a minute is the life of the durablest Creature to this Everlastingness What a minute is a Mans life in respect of the Sun 's or a Tree's The duration of the World is but a minute to Eternity Man's life is but a minute to the World Occasion is but a minute to our life and yet we scarce apprehend a minute of that occasion if we do not lay hold on this opportunity wherein we may receive good and become blessed In both these respects it is manifest That our days on earth are very few of which the Patriarch Jacob being sensible confessed Few and evil have the days of my pilgrimage been And holy Job tho he was a man of sorrows and a great part of his life-time was swallowed up by many bitter calamities on which score one would think he should rather complain of the tediousness than of the shortness of his life for sorrow makes time long Minutes seem Hours and Days Months to the miserable Our imagination makes the day of our sorrow like Joshua's day when the Sun stood in Gibeon the Summer of our delight is too short but the Winter of our adversity goes slowly on yet notwithstanding this he concludes That mans days are few he cometh forth as a flower and is cut down he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not Whereunto is exactly consonant that of the Evangelical Prophet Isa 40 6 7. All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field the grass withereth the flower fadeth Nay the Scripture sometimes to insinuate how short our time is vouchsafes not to number it by days but calls our whole life a Day Long life is a Summer day short life is a Winter day joyful life is a