Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	grace_n	heart_n	holy_a	14,318	5	4.7839	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47613	A summons to the grave, or, The necessity of a timely preparation for death demonstrated in a sermon preached at the funeral of that most eminent and faithful servant of Jesus Christ Mr. John Norcot who departed this life March 24, 1675/6 / by Benjamin Keach.	Keach, Benjamin, 1640-1704.	1676 (1676)	Wing K95; ESTC R29890	33,691	104

I had dreadful Plague Fire and Sword and what further means could God make use of in an ordinary way for allarming and stirring of us up to prepare for our change aud turning of our souls to himself and fitting of us for Eternity And shall none of these work upon you Shall all means fail Shall the Gospel be preached in vain Shall Ministers spend their study their breath nay their strength to no purpose what will you do then in the end 6. Do you know that you shall have all these helps continued to you Will God still suffer his holy Spirit to strive with you Alass Death may soon have Commission to seize you and carry you into the other world but should you live are you sure God will still wait upon you upon such rebels who have slighted and undervalued his Grace Son and Gospel Sirs I must tell you alluding to that in Genesis 6. which hath often been upon my heart that the blessed Spirit shall not alwayes strive with man Means and advantages are like to be taken away God ere long may say to Conscience Be still reprove that man that woman no more You may be left to commit wickedness without remorse or trouble God may give you up to a hardened and sordid heart to a seared and filthy Conscience yea and refuse in mercy to afflict you any more see Hosea 4. 14. May not he that hath taken away a Minister an able one a sweet and precious Labourer take away ere long a sweet and precious Gospel and what will become of your souls then 7. Do you know for certain the Gospel shall be continued to this Land Be you sure you shall hear the joyful sound Let me tell you my thoughts freely though I pretend not to a spirit of Prophesie yet mark what follows I tremble to think what is coming upon us as a punishment of our sins I fear Beloved the Gospel is a going Ephraim hath grey hairs here and there though he know it not and grey hairs are a sign that our morning or best days are gone secondly they commonly bring a wrinkled face or a decay of Beauty our goodness like Ephraims are even like the morning dew thirdly they bring feebleness or a decay of strength fourthly they shew that death and mortality draws near We have heard some of us that he was grey a great while ago I doubt he is white by this time There are sad symptomes upon us I know not how soon we may have cause to cry Ichabod because the glory is departed Are we not in danger to be over-spread with Popery Confusion and Darkness for if the Gospel should continue and Gods people resolve to do their best by their prayers and prizing of it to hold it fast yet are you sure you shall have Ministers to prcach unto you Many have been taken of late away and one at this time before your eyes is gone a faithful and able one whom now you shall hear no more But should there be Ministers and opportunities yet you may be left to your selves to ripen for Hell and ruin Nay Is not Christ already crying over you as he did over Jerusalem Oh that thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belongeth to thy peace but now they are hid from eyes Luke 19. 42. Oh that these things might take hold and touch your Conscicnces 8. Consider of the shortness and uncertainty of your dayes Alas what is your life you know not how soon death may come and knock at your doors or look in at your windows It may be some of you have had many years but this consider of you know not how few the rest may be behind you have no promise from God no lease or assurance that you have one year more where hath God told you that you shall nay one half year You cannot assure your self you shall have one month no not one week no not one day You may be stricken by death before you return home Boast not thy self of too morrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth Pro. 27. 1. Many that are young hope that they may have many years the child thinks to be a youth and the youth to be a man and a man till he is full of dayes But alass they consider not how brittle they are they do not lay to heart the uncertainty of their lives David desired to know his end and the measure of his days that he might know how frail he was Psal 39. 4 5. Many do not take a right measure of their dayes they measure not by a lawful Rule What say some my Father and Grandfather lived to a good old age and I hope to attain to their years Others measure by their present health they are not diseased nor sickly but of a good healthful Constitution but alass this is no sure Rule thou mayest notwithstanding all this be quickly in the grave such sometimes death makes to stoop on a sudden they go many times before sickly persons Others measure their dayes by their present strength they fear not death upon that account yet they die as you have heard though wholly at ease these do not go by the Kings Standard neither Let me tell you what is a right and true measure for your dayes account them then by the morning dew and flower of the field Man that is born of a woman saith holy Job is but of few dayes he cometh forth like a flower and is cut down and flieth away like a shadow and continueth not Job 14. 12. Naturalists tells us of a plant that lasts but for a day this plant thou or I may be The Heathen hath observed that the Rose grows old in its very budding Mankind is like Jonah's Gourd that came up in a night and perished in a night Nothing fades sooner than a flower oh measure thy dayes by that and by the vapour that appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away the Spiders Web the Swift Post the Weavers Shuttle or a Ship under sail Persons never so rich or great never so beautiful never so weak of strong wise or foolish vertuous or vicious as thou hast heard must die May not the thoughts of this move thee to a preparedness for the grave 9. Consider how you have loytered hitherto and lost much of your precious time which God hath lent you to prepare for the grave Upon the improvement of your present time doth your eternal happiness depend and if it be squandered away what will become of your immortal and never dying souls If a man hath much work to do work of the weightiest concern that must be done or the man undone business that would take up all his day and it should so fall out that he had lost the morning nay above half his day would it not concern him to set about the work with all his might so as if possible to do two hours works in one lest the Sun

of affection to the Messenger but perhaps thou mayst be one that likes neither may be thou dost not care to hear of the tidings of dying and art ready to judge them melancholy fools that break their sleep about it These who are indeed prepared for it have no cause to be disquieted in thoughts of it but what wilt thou do when death comes that hast a guilty conscience have you not heard of that poor soul who cried out in horrour and distress of spirit upon his death-bed O what shall I do I am so sick that I cannot live and yet so unprepared that I dare not die Remember that the thoughts of death when it comes will abate thy courage 't will make the proudest heart to stoop 'T is a pretty Passage that I remember of a certain King of Hungary who being on a time very sad his Brother a Jolly Courtier would needs know what ailed him O Brother said he I have bin a great sinner against God and I know not how to die nor appear before God in Judgment These are said his Brother melancholy thoug●●… and withal made a Jest at them the King replied nothing for the present but the custom of the Countrey was that if the Executioner came and sounded his Trumpet before any mans door he was presently to be led out to the Place of Execution the King in the dead time of the Night sends the Headsman to sound his Trumpet before his Brothers door who hearing it and seeing the Messenger of death springs in pale and trembling into the Kings Presence beseeching him to tell him wherein he had offended O Brother replied the King you have never offended me and is this Executioner so dreadful and shall not I that have greatly and grievously offended God fear to be brought before the Judgement Seat of Christ Death amazes none more when it comes as it doth them who think not of it the Egyptians used to carry about the Table a Deaths Head at their Feasts 't is good in the midst of all our delights and enjoyments to be put in minde of the Grave And if this Sermon spake no more power fully to thee then a Deaths-Head to awaken thee it may be worth thy Pains to read it God may bless weak endeavors to great advantage Jesus Christ could make five Barley leaves and two Fishes to feed five thousand men and yet the fragments that were left might saetisfie many a poor hungry soul what though thou art afterly served God can heat it by his Spirit God can make it wholesom food for thy soul if thou hast but an appetite I do not much fear thy relishing of it for though the full stomack loaths the Honey-comb yet to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet But because I would not weary thee I shall only now give thee a summary Account of the particular things insisted upon and then commit thee to God 1. Thou hast the certainty of Death amplified or brieftly enlarged upon 2. Some awaking Considerations and Motives to a speedy and effectual Preparation for it 3. Several Directions and Cautions in order to it 4. You have dying Ministers lamented or several sad grounds of Lamentation upon that account 5. Then fifthly and lastly you have comfort against Death or how true Christians may stay and support themselves in the hour of death or in parting with godly relations and because nothing is more effectual in order to this then that comfortable assurance of present enjoyment or being with Christ at that very instant when the breath leaves us somthing was offered to confirm the souls immortality it was but a little which was said had it been more it would not have bin too much It was not delivered as it is matter of controversie to grieve any who are differently perswaded but as 't is matter of comfort suiting with the occasion that so sorrowful spirits might be consolated having for several years found the usefulness and sweetness of the doctrine under the like dispensation my self What is more plainly laid down in holy Scripture then this and those Arguments that so much establish me in the beleef hereof are many one is taken from our Saviours own words Because man cannot kill the soul Mat. 10. 28. If men cannot kill it then 't is not mortal As also the consideration of its nature being spirit might I not reason thus If the noble part of man somtimes called soul be spirit then 't is immortal but 't is called spirit in several places and again doth not the name of spirit declare its nature a spirit in its nature is invisible and its very essence is life if it should cease to live if would be spirit no more Thirdly the Scripture shews that at death the body goes one way and the spirit goes another namely to God that gave it we may judge also of the nature of the spirit or soul of man if we consider how nothing but God himself can satisfie it lives upon divine and immortal food and therefore sure must be of like nature what does shew more clearly that our bodies are earthly or made of earth as the consideration of their being fed and sustained from the earth so say I on the contrary hand in respect of the soul 't is sed with spiritual and immortal food ergo such is its nature but not to trouble you with things of this kinde further Reader let it be thy Chief care to prepare for thy eternal state for be sure it will be but a little while and thou wilt find either to thy everlasting joy and comfort or else to thy everlasting wo and sorrow the truth of this doctrine of the Souls Immortality and the effects thereof And that this broken Sermon may prove through Gods blessing someways for thy Souls advantage and profit is the sincere desire of Thy Affectionate and Cordial Friend and Servant in the Lord Jesus B. K. An ELEGY on the Death of that most Laborious and Painful Minister of the Gospel Mr. JOHN NORCOT who fell asleep in the Lord the 24th of this instant March 1675-76 HOW doth my troubled Soul amused stand On thoughts of God's most sore Chastising hand Let Heaven assist my Pen and help indite This Mournful Elegy I 'm mov'd to write My grieved heart knows not what way to take Its love to shew and lamentation make David for Jonathan was sore distrest And in like so 't has sorrow seiz'd my Breast Beloved John is gone dear Norcot's dead That Man of God who hath so often fed Our precious Souls with Manna from above Whose powerful preaching did ingage our love To Jesus Christ O! h● had care and skill To feed poor souls and do hi● Master 's will But is he from us also took away What breach still upon breach Lord Jesus stay Thy band such stroaks are hardly born Here 's cause for hundreds to lament and mourn The loss is gr●at th● Churches do sustain Poor sinners too