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
A69538	The last work of a believer his passing prayer recommending his departing spirit to Christ to be received by Him / prepared for the funerals of Mary the widow first of Francis Charlton Esq. and after of Thomas Hanmer, Esq., and partly preached at St. Mary Magdalens Church in Milk-Street, London, and now, at the desire of her daughter, reprinted by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1682 (1682)	Wing B1298; ESTC R5056	51,178	102

though the Tempter would aggravate his sins and weakness and dulness to his discouragement yet he may he must with confidence recommend his Spirit to Christ to be Received by him O learn this Doctrine Christians that you may use it in the hour of your last distress The hour is near the distress will be the greatest that ever you were in As well as we seem now while we are hearing this our turn is nigh The Midwife is not so neccssary to the life of the Child that Receiveth it into the world as Christs Receiving will be then to our everlasting life To say over heartlesly these words Lord Jesus receive my Spirit will be no more than a dead hearted Hypocrite may do such formal lip-service in life or at death doth profit nothing to salvation Now make such necessary preparation that at Death you may have well-grounded confidence that Jesus Christ will receive your Spirits 1. And first let me bring this to the carnal unprepared sinner Poor sinner What thoughts hast thou of thy dying hour and of thy departing Soul I wonder at thee what thoughts thou hast of them that thou canst sin so boldly and live so carelesly and talk or hear of the life to come so senselesly as thou dost Thou mightest well think I wronged thee if I took thee to be such a brute as not to know that thou must die Thy Soul that brought thy body hither that causeth it now to hear and understand that carryeth it up and down the world must very shortly be required of thee and must seek another habitation What thoughts hast thou of thy departing Soul Will Christ receive it Hast thou made sure of that Or hast thou made it thy principal care and business to make sure O what doth intoxicate the brains of sensual worldly men that they drown themselves in the Cares of this Life and ride and run for transitory Riches and live upon the Smoak of Honour and Applause and never soberly and seriously bethink them whether Christ will receive their departed Souls That they can fill their minds with other thoughts and fill their mouthes with other talk and consume their time in other inconsiderable employments and take no more care and spend no more thoughts and words and time about the entertainment of their departing Souls When they are even ready to be gone and stand as it were on tip-toes when Fevers and Consumptions and many hundred Diseases are all abroad so busily distributing their Summons and when the Gates of Death have so many Passengers crowding in and Souls are making such haste away will you not consider what shall become of yours Will you say that you hope well and you must venture If God had appointed you nothing to do to prepare for your safe passage and entertainment with Christ you might then take up with such an Answer But it 's a mad adventure to leave all undone that is necessary to your salvation and then to say You must put it to the venture If you die in and unrenewed and unjustified state it is past all ventures for it is certain that Christ will not receive you You may talk of hoping dut it is not a matter to be hoped for Hope that God will make good every word of his Promise and spare not But there is no more Hope that Christ will Receive the souls of any but of his members than there is that he will prove a lyar He never promised to save any others and that is not all but he hath declared and professed frequently that he will not And you are no Believers if you will not believe him And if you believe him you must believe that the unbelievers the unregenerate the unholy and the workers of iniquity shall not be received into the Kingdom of Heaven For he hath professed it John 3. 3 36. Heb. 12. 14. Matth. 7. 23. If Christ would Receive the souls of all your venture then had reason for it Or if he had left it as a thing that depended only on his unrevealed will and not on any preparations of our own we might then have quit our selves of the care and cast it all on him as being his part and none of ours But it is not so I hope I need not tell you that it is not so Believe it the Question must be Now resolved and resolved by your selves whether Christ shall Receive your departed souls or cast them off as firebrands for Hell He hath made the Law and set down the terms already to which he will unalterably stand and which we must trust to It is now that you must labour to be accepted of him For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5. 9 10. O Sirs this is the reason of our importunity with you Knowing the terrors of the Lord we persuade men saith the Apostle in the next words vers 11. We know that the sentence will be just and that it is now in your own hands what judgment then shall pass upon you And if just now your souls were passing hence before you went from the place you sit in would you think any care could be too great to make sure that they should go to happiness O that you would consider how much it is your own work and how much it resteth on your selves what Christ shall then do with you Then you will cry to him for mercy O cast not away a miserable soul Lord receive me into thy Kingdom But now he must intreat you to be saved and to be the people that he may then Receive and you will not hear him And if you will not hear him when he calleth on you and beseecheth you to Repent and to prepare as sure as Christ is Christ he will not hear you when you cry and call for mercy too late in your extremity Read Prov. 1. and you will see this is true It is you that are to be entreated that Christ may receive you for the unwillingness and backwardness is on your part You are now poysoning your souls by sin and when we cannot intreat you either to forbear or to take the Vomit of Repentance yet when you are gasping and dying of your own willful self-murder you will then cry to Christ and think he must receive you upon terms inconsistent with his justice holiness and truth But flatter not your selves it will not be This is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation refuse it now and it is lost for ever O Sirs if this were the hour and you were presently to be received or refused would you blame me to cry and call to you with all the fervour of my soul if I knew that it were in your own choice whether you would go to Heaven or Hell Why now it is in your choice Life and

enjoyment of the real sure delight Take heed of being too much pleased in the creature Have you houses and lands and offices and honours and friends that are very pleasing to you Take heed for that is the killing snare Shut your eyes and wink them all into nothing and cast by your contrivances and cares and fears and remember you have another work to do 2. Live in Communion with a suffering Christ study well the whole life and nature of his sufferings and the reason of them and think how desirable it is to be conformed to him Thus look to Jesus that for the joy that was set before him despised the shame and endured the Cross and the contradiction of sinners against himself Dwell upon this example that the image of a humbled suffering Christ being deeply imprinted on thy mind may draw thy heart into a juster relish of a mortified state Sure he is no good Christian that thinks it not better to live as Christ did in holy poverty and sufferings in the world then as Croesus or Caesar or any such worldling and self-pleasure lived Die daily by following Jesus with your Cross and when you have a while suffered with him he will make you perfect and receive your spirits and you shall reign with him It wonderfully prepareth for a comfortable Death to live in the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ He is most likely to die quietly patiently and joyfully that can first be poor be neglected be scorned be wronged be slandered be imprisoned quietly patiently and joyfully If you were but at Hierusalem you would with some love and pleasure go up Mount Olivet and think Christ went this very way You would Love to see the place where he was born the way which he went when he carryed his Cross the holy grave where he was buried where there in a Temple which Pilgrims use to visit from whence they use to bring the mark as a pleasing badge of honour But how much More of Christ is there in our suffering for his Cause and Truth and in following him in a mortified self-denying life then in following him in the path that he hath trodden upon earth His enemies saw his Cross his Grave his Mother his person This did not heal their sinful Souls and make them happy But the Cross that he calleth us to bear is a life of suffeing for Righteousness sake in which he commandeth us to rejoyce and be exceeding glad because our Reward is great in Heaven though all manner of evil be spoken of us falsly by men on earth Mat. 5. 11 12. This is called a being pertakers of Christs sufferings in which we are commanded to rejoyce that when this glory shall be revealed we may be glad with exceeding joy 1 Pet. 4. 13. And as the sufferings of Christ abound towards us so will our Consolation abound by Christ 1 Cor. 1. 5. Till we come up to a life of willing mortification and pleased contented suffering with Christ we are in the lower form of his School and as Children shall tremble at that which should not cause our terrour and through misapprehensions of the case of a departing soul shall be afraid of that which should be our joy I am not such an enemy to the esteem of relicks but if one could shew me the very stock that Paul and Silas sate in when they sung Psalms in their imprisonment Acts 16. I could be contented to be put for the like cause into the same stocks with a special willingness and pleasure How much more should we be willing to be conformed to our suffering Lord in a Spirit and life of true mortification 3. Hold Communion also with his suffering Members Desire not to dwell in the tents of wickedness nor to be planted among them that flourish for a time that they may be destroyed for ever Psal 92. 6 7. I had rather have Bradford's heart and faggot than Bonners Bishoprick It was holy Stephen and not those that stoned him that saw Heaven opened and the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God Acts 7. 56. and that could joyfully say Lord Jesus Receive my Spirit He liveth not by Faith though he may be a hanger on that keepeth up some profession for fear of being damned who chooseth not rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season and esteemeth not the very reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the world as having respect to the recompence of reward Heb. 11. 25. 26. 4. Live as if Heaven were open to your sight and then dote upon the delights of worldlings if you can Then love a life of fleshly case and honour better than to be with Christ if yon can But of this I have spoken at large in other writings Christian make it the study and business of thy Life to learn to do thy Last Work well that Work which must be done but once that so Death which transmits unholy Souls into utter darkness and despair may deliver thy Spirit into thy Redeemers deemers hands to be Received to his Glory according to that blessed promise John 12. 26. And while I am in the flesh beg the same mercy for Thy Brother and Companion in tribulation and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ Richard Baxter London Jan. 31. 1661●●… A BELIEVERS Last Work ACTS 7. 59. Lord Jesus receive my Spirit THE Birth of Nature and the New Birth of Grace in their measure resemble the Death of Saints which is the Birth of Glory It is a bitter-sweet day a day that is mixt of sorrow and joy when Nature must quit its familiar Guest and yield to any of these Changes Our Natural Birth is not without the throws and pain and groanings of the Mother though it transmit the Child into a more large and lightsom and desirable Habitation Our Spiritual Birth is not without its humbling and heart-piercing sorrows and when we are brought out of darkness into the marvellous light we leave our old Companions in displeasure whom we forsake and our Flesh repining at the loss of its sensual delights And our passage into Glory is not without those pangs and fears which must needs be the attendants of a pained Body ready to be dissolved and a Soul that is going through so strait a door into a strange though a most blessed place And it leaveth our lamenting Friends behind that feel their loss and would longer have enjoyed our Company and see not though they believe the Glory of the departed Soul And this is our case that are brought hither this day by an act of Providence sad to us though joyous to our departed Friend by a Voice that hath called her into Glory and called us into this Mourning plight Even us that rejoyce in the thoughts of her Felicity and are not so cruel as to wish her again into this corruptible Flesh and calamitous World from the glorious

be a sadder part of thy Change Here the Rich would have received thee the Poor would have served and flattered thee thy Friends would have comforted thee thy Play-fellows would have been merry with thee But there alas how the case is altered All these have done the Table is withdrawn the Game is ended the Mirth is ceased and now succeedeth Son remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented Luke 16. 25. O dreadful Change to those that made the World their home and little dreamed or did but dream of such a day Never to see this World again unless by such reviews as will torment them never to have sport or pleasure more and for these to have such Company such Thoughts such Work and Usage as God hath told us is in Hell 4. If Christ receive thee not the burden of thy sins will overwhelm thee and conscience will have no relief Sin will not then appear in so harmless a shape as now it will then seem a more odious or frightful thing O to remember these days of folly of careless sluggish obstinate folly of sottish negligence and contempt of Grace will be a more tormenting thing than you will now believe If such Sermons and Discourses as foretel it are troublesom to thee what then will that sad Experience be 5. The wrath of an offended God will overwhelm thee This will be thy Hell He that was so merciful in the time of Mercy will be most terrible and implacable when that time is past and make men know that Christ and Mercy are not neglected refused and abused at so cheap a rate as they would needs imagine in the time of their deliration 6. It will overwhelm the Soul if Christ receive it not to see that then art entring upon Eternity even into an everlasting state of Woe Then thou wilt think O whither am I going What must I endure And how long How long When shall my misery have an end and When shall I come back and How shall I ever be delivered O now what thoughts wilt thou have of the wonderful Design of God in Man's Redemption Now thou wilt better understand what a Saviour was worth and how he should have been believed in and how his Gospel and his saving Grace should have been entertained O that the Lord would now open your hearts to entertain it that you may not then value it to your vexation that would not value it now to your relief Poor sinner for the Lord's sake and for thy Souls sake I beg now of thee as if it were on my knees that thou wouldst cast away thy sinful Cares and Pleasures and open thy Heart and now receive thy Saviour and his saving Grace as ever thou wouldst have him then receive thy trembling departed Soul Turn to him now that he may not turn thee from him then Forsake him not for a flattering World a little transitory vain Delight as ever thou wouldst not then have thy departed Soul forsaken by him O delay not Man but now even now receive him that thou maist avoid so terrible a danger and put so great a question presently out of doubt and be able comfortably to say I have received Christ and he will receive me if I die this night he will receive me Then thou maist sleep quietly and live merrily without any disparagement to thy Reason O yield to this Request Sinner of one that desireth thy Salvation If thou wert now departing and I would not pray earnestly to Christ to receive thy Soul thou wouldst think I were uncharitable Alas it will be one of these days and it is thee that I must entreat and thy self that must be prevailed with or there is no hope Christ sendeth me to thy self and saith that he is willing to receive thee if now thou wilt receive him and be sanctified and ruled by him The matter stops at thy own regardless wilful heart What sayst thou Wilt thou receive Christ now or not Wilt thou be a new creature and live to God by the Principle of his Spirit and the Rule of his Word to please him here that thou maist live with him for ever Wilt thou take up this Resolution and make this Covenant with God this day O give me a word of comfort and say Thou art resolved and wilt deliver up thy self to Christ That which is my comfort now on thy behalf will be ten thousand-fold more thy comfort then when thou partakest of the Benefit And if thou grieve us now by denying thy Soul to Christ it will be at last ten thousand-fold more thy grief Refuse not our requests and Christs requests now as ever thou wouldst not have him refuse thee then and thy requests It is mens turning away now from Christ that will cause Christ then to turn from them Prov. 1. 31. 32. The turning away of the simple slayeth them and they then eat but the fruit of their own way and are filled with their own devices See then that ye now refuse not him that speaketh for there is no escaping if you turn away from him that speaketh from heaven Heb. 12. 25. What would you say your selves to the man that would not be dissuaded from setting his House on fire and then would pray and cry importunately to God that he would keep it from being burnt Or of the man that will not be dissuaded from taking Poyson and then when it gripeth him will cry to God to save his life Or of the man that will go to Sea in a leaking broken vessel yea himself will make those breaches in it that shall let the Water in and when it is sinking will cry to God to save him from being drowned And will you do this about so great a matter as the everlasting state of your immortal Souls Will you now be wordlings and sensualists and ungodly and undo your selves and then cry Lord Jesus receive my Spirit at the last What! receive an unholy Spirit Will you not knock till the door is shut when he telleth you Math. 7. 21. That it is not every one that will cry Lord Lord that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of his Father which is in Heaven Lastly consider with what unspeakable joy it will fill thy Soul to be then received by the Lord. O what a joyful word will it be when thou shalt hear Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you If thou wilt not have this to be thy case thou shalt see those received to the increase of thy grief whom thou refusedst here to imitate There shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth when ye shall see Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God and those that from East West North and South shall sit there with them and thou thrust out Luke 13. 27 28 29. I have been long in