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	holy_a	lord_n	14,167	5	3.6878	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36854	A sermon preached in the metropolitical Church of Canterbury, October 17, MDCLXXII, at the funeral of the Very Reverend Thomas Turner, D.D., dean of the same church by Peter du Moulin ...	Du Moulin, Peter, 1601-1684.	1672 (1672)	Wing D2567; ESTC R10909	12,567	32

thou in the midst of thine enemies Is not liberty a great gain to a slave and a prisoner To a man that served his lust his belly his money his revengeful mind and the Devil by them what a gain is it by serving God to become Master at home to feel in his breast instead of a storm of unruly passions the peace of God which passeth all understanding and to find to his great comfort that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty What a great gain is it to be made rich in good works rich in God What a great gain is it for us to give those goods which we cannot keep and thereby to purchase goods which we cannot loose To sow upon earth that which we shall be sure to reap in heaven To put out our money to Gods bank who will repay it an hundred fold And how great a gain is the practice of godliness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Godliness is a great gain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with sufficiency A great gain which brings along sufficiency and contentment for so the text must be understood Of that many a good soul could say much by feeling experience For although the great gain of godliness be not for this world as the kingdom of Christ is not of it Yet Christ who is the Sovereign Lord of nature as well as King of the Church engageth his Royal word that all that serve him and sincerely seek his glory shall not need to say What shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed because their heavenly Father knoweth that they have need of all these things Mat. 6.33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you This is the Charter of Christs Disciples that they may confidently cast their cares upon him for he careth for them and so forsake all interesses to follow him But this is the least gain that we get by Christ in this life The great gain is the beginning of eternal life For the spiritual life in a godly mans breast is of one piece with life everlasting after the temporal is ended To have at hand the directions of his word the counsels of his Spirit the comforts of his love the joyes of his salvation To have a free access unto the throne of grace at all times To make one already in the quire of Angels and Saints singing with them Holy Holy Holy Lord God of hosts heaven and earth is full of the Majesty of his glory To be joyful in hope looking up unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith who went up through the rough way of the Cross to glory to make us a plain way to the same This is the gain that comes to us even in this life by having Christ Join to these the comforts that we relish in all conditions Is it prosperity the true Christian takes it as an effect of Gods promise which was made good to this reverend godly Divine that by humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honour and life Pro. 22.4 and that godliness is profitable for all things having the promises of this life and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 In every morsel he will relish how the Lord is gracious In his health in his wealth in his hopeful family he will ever look more to the giver than to the gift and adore him in whom he liveth and moveth and hath his being and his well being Is he in adversity He will say I know whom I have believed God hath a hand in all this Psal 39. I will be dumb and not open my mouth to murmur for thou O Lord hast done it My cross is my Saviours livery My humble conformity to his sufferings will end in a conformity to his glory if I may have the same mind which was also in Christ Jesus who humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name Now that gain which we have by Christ in this life is but a preparative to that grand and unmatchable gain in Christ which his true Disciples attain unto by death Christ is a gain unto them to die two ways by avoyding the sting and the terrours of death and by a passage unto an eternal life of holiness and glory The sting and terrour of approaching death is most tormenting to those that have taken no pains to make Christ the gain of their life What a cutting of their heart is it when they have fixt it upon the beloved world and they must be violently torn off from the world Linquenda tellus domus placens uxor And of all the wealth which they have heapt up with anxious care and wicked labour they see they carry nothing away but a winding sheet But the worst sting of death is that which they feel in their conscience when it sets before them the years spent in deboish the unrighteousness of their purchases their contempt of Gods word their slighting of his service their blasphemous and unclean conversation and upon that pronounceth unto them as Gods Officer the doom of divine justice which must be shortly executed upon them It is true many of those sinners in grain die senseless Yet before their death the sting of eternal death meets with their consciences even in the midst of their jollities And many sinners of a lower form feel it all their lives time To heal consciences of that sting was the great end of the Son of God's coming and dying in our flesh As you have it illustriously set forth Heb. 2.14 That Christ took part of flesh and blood that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil And deliver them who through fear of death are all their lives time subject unto bondage This is the great remedy against that mortal sting of death sent by the Father of mercies to poor sinners A never sading remedy when sinners have the grace to receive it with a sincere faith effectual in an humble repentance and a serious amendment For then the soul reconciled with God looks upon death with quite another eye then before and saith O death where is thy sting Rom. 7. O grave where is thy victory Death do not look grim upon me I know who hath overcome thee Conscience do not think to fright me I know whom I have believed I have committed my spirit assoiled with Christs blood into his victorious hands And I know he is both willing and powerful to defend it against all the principalities and powers of hell that are roaring about me to devour me After that deliverance from the sting and the terrour of death followeth the attainment of eternal life and death it self is the passage unto it There is that difference between

A SERMON Preached in the Metropolitical Church OF CANTERBURY October 17. MDCLXXII AT THE FUNERAL Of the very Reverend THOMAS TURNER D.D. Dean of the same Church By Peter du Moulin D.D. Canon there and One of His Majesties Chaplains LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in S. 〈◊〉 Church-Yard near the West End 1672. PHIL. 1.21 For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain THE Gospel is the onely Doctrine of true Wisdom and therefore the onely direction to true Happiness Thereby the Christian learneth to walk before his God unto all pleasing and charitably and uprightly with his Neighbours to instruct his ignorance and correct his perversness to stand fast erected and contented in the several turns of this World to live well and to die well which is all That sacred Doctrine is then most effectual to those great ends when it comes seconded by example and attested by experience Give me lessons like my text and the two before where the Teacher teacheth himself and sets forth his doctrine by his practice The good Apostle was in bonds in imminent peril of death And besides the persecution from Pagans he was maligned by false brethren who preached Christ out of contention not sincerely supposing to adde affliction to his bonds In that double trial see how the holy champion puts on the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation and takes in one hand the sword of the Spirit in the other the buckler of faith Vers 19. I know saith he that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ According to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed but that with all boldness as alwayes so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body whether it be by life or by death For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain or to make it more English Either way or rather both the ways Christ is a gain unto me both to live and to die Yet he had declared before and so he doth after that he held it a far greater gain for him to die for Christ and would rather glorify him by his death than life This was also the godly mind of our dear and highly honoured Dean in his last sickness especially So deep was the gaining of Christ in his pious soul that he could be sensible of no comfort but through death that he might gain Christ The mention of recovery did afflict him yea offend him I fear nothing so much would he say as to recover I long to be dissolved and to be with Christ That sentence was continually in his mouth That resolution was stedfastly fixt in his mind Did any speak to him of life and health and the comfort of his wife and children Away would he answer I have enjoyed all these long enough Christ I would have O when shall I be dissolved and be with Christ Much in the same stile as David As the hart panteth after the water-brooks Psal 42.1 so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before God One may tell me that I press the practice of my text before the doctrine But I will say for my self that in this text the practice is the leader of the doctrine Vnto me to live is Christ and to die is gain And to shew how Christ was a gain unto St. Paul and to those that are his followers as he also was of Christ it is the life of the text Yet because the doctrine is the pattern of the practice this is the kernel of the doctrine of the text and the order to be kept in the exposition Christ being sent unto men to be a gain unto them it is presupposed thereby that they are at a loss without him Mans natural losses are the deprivation of Gods knowledge in his understanding and of Gods righteousness in his will Whence follow heavy judgments upon him in his life and eternal woe after his death To help him in this sad condition The Son of God hath brought from the bosom of his Father unto mankind that heavenly doctrine of glory to God on high and on earth peace good will towards men Which being embraced with obedience of faith will prove such a gain unto him that those spiritual losses shall be repaired his temporal wants shall be supplied his afflictions shall be removed or so sanctified that they will prove lucrative unto him And Death that proper and dismal stipend of sin will prove unto him the greatest gain of all for instead of tumbling him down into hell it will powre him into the bosom of his Father which is in heaven that bottomless depth of goodness and glory Of which goodness and glory the summary is to be fully conformed in mans measure unto Christ his soveraine good and to be joined with him for ever To resume these consider a little what a wretched thing a man is that hath not learned Christ As for his understanding he is plunged in deep ignorance knowing neither God nor himself nor his danger nor his remedy Much like one who being fallen from a high place is so stunned with the fall that he knoweth not that he is fallen Carnal men are much like moles that dig under ground with great industry but are blind in the sunshine So naturally ignorant in the things of God that the wisest of this world the Philosophers were divided into more then two hundred opinions about the soveraine good And that the ingenious nations the Egyptians and Grecians were the most monstrous of all in their religions The Egyptians worshipping oxen and crocodiles onions and leeks The Grecians imagining in heaven feasts and combats and adulteries among their Gods And even in our days corrupt men have so intailed ignorance upon religion that we are taught by Popery that faith consisteth in ignorance which is a vertue easily attained Well to heal mens minds of ignorance in the things of God God hath sent his Son into the world 2 Tim. 1. who hath brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel Here is a gain indeed Mat. 13.46 Here is that pearl of great price which that a man may have he must sell all that he hath and buy it Prov. 3. Here is that wisedom the merchandise whereof is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof then fine gold She is more pretious then rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her The excellency of that gain is then made most manifest when from the illuminating of our understanding it passeth to the regulating of our affections and the sanctifying of our hearts Christ enabling our spirits freely to join with his Spirit to subdue all our inward rebellions and bringing them captives under the throne of Christ say unto him Lord rule

and decent splendor in the house of God advancing the good of the place wheresoever he presided what ever toil or censure or money it cost him Of which he hath given magnificent memorials to our Church and Library It is memorable that in thankfulness for a great deliverance from an imminent danger he vowed and dedicated to our Holy Table that costly Folio Bible with covers of beaten silver double gilt His behaviour at Pauls hath given many signal testimonies how much he preferred the honour of Gods house and the benefit of the Society before his private emolument The fair house which he lately built there for his successours having little hope to enjoy it himself and yet spent the better part of a thousand pounds upon it is a great proof of that truth and a lasting monument of his magnanimous and publick spirit In all the relations of a Son a Husband a Father a Kinsman or a Friend he ever acquitted himself with singular wisedom constant piety and almost unparalleled generosity Take him any way you shall find in him a right tetragonismus a firm cube equal on all sides I cannot but once more touch his superlative bounty to the poor who therefore were his constant attendants appropriating to him Christs saying to his Disciples The poor you shall have alwayes with you But his secret alms were far greater then the open Thereby indeed Christ was a gain unto him and the promise for this life made good The liberal soul shall be made fat and the greater promise of the heavenly kingdom to them that have fed and clothed Christ in his members is now fulfilled to him But may I not say that as Christ was a gain unto him he was also a gain unto Christ Why Hath not Christ said In as much as you have done it to one of the least of my brethren you have done it unto me Mat. 25 To Christ then he hath brought as much gain that way as any of his time and means His memory be ever blessed for it for so is his glorious soul Having then seen how Christ was to him a gain to live Let us see now how Christ was a gain to him to die which is the end that crowneth the work His good life was a continual preparation to a good death But he made a particular preparation for it without any design For when he preacht in his last course which was the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity being in perfect health he took for his text Into thy hands I commit my spirit Thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of truth His excellent Sermon he delivered with full vigour continued in that vigour four daies longer But on the Friday after that Critical or rather Prophetical Sermon he fell sick of the sickness of which he dyed And when his sickness began he could say that he had preacht his funeral Sermon How well did he teach us then to commit our spirits unto God while we live by a full resignation submission and obedience unto his holy will that in our death we may with confidence and joy commit and give up our spirits into the hands of our Redeemer that God of truth who will faithfully preserve perfect and glorifie the souls that have committed themselves to his keeping With these thoughts God armed his servant against his last combat at hand The sharp assaults of his disease the stone after thirty years of good health were not terrible enough to shake his constancy or give him any dreadful apprehensions except of living No man ever feared death more then he desired it Yet with all submission and resignation to Gods heavenly will No word so frequent in his mouth as Cupio dissolvi esse cum Christo I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ To which he would pray the company to say Amen The reading of a Penitential Psalm to him would melt him into tears of contrition and he would repeat it after the reader And when he said nothing he practised St Pauls precept Pray continually Wherefore he desired often that the prayers of the Liturgy when they were said near him should be shortened assuring his friends that he had said them all already to himself But he did not limit his devotions to the Liturgy but entertained himself with God with high and savoury expressions of his own with such a strength and serenity of mind that in his greatest weakness and in his sorest pains scarce did he speak one ill placed word to the last minute When his throat and tongue were most grievously parched being asked how he felt himself he answered that his soul was athirst for God for he had Davids longing to refresh and satiate his weary soul with the fountain of Gods life and the fatness of his house The day before he surrendred his blessed soul into the hands of God he received the Holy Sacrament very devoutly conquering his aversion against any thing offered to him to swallow And although he had not been able to take down any arid nutriment scarce any liquid in forty eight hours yet he forced himself to receive the Viaticum The innocent gayety of his humour which made his company so singularly agreeable to all sorts of men did not utterly forsake him to the last He would smile at his dear relations when he saw them flatter themselves with hopes of his recovery two or three hours before his death telling them pleasantly that what he took to please them would not do the work Yet was he extreme tractable to any thing prescribed however contrary to his discerning judgement of his own condition And when he was desired for Gods sake and for his and his friends conscience to submit to some painful applications but an hour before he expired he put forth his whole strength of body which was as well built as most in the world and raised himself twice in his bed to their admiration for it seemed that it was more the strength of conscience than that of his limbs that made him thus active He would be sure to thank any one most affectinately that prayed by him directing his friends to the use of the Liturgy or to call upon God in the words of the Holy Spirit either places of the new Testament or of the Psalms Most of his discourse was ghostly fatherly heavenly counsel And about an hour before his last breath he gave his blessing to all his by the imposition of his most reverend hand And gave up the ghost with the greatest Christian magnanimity and yet with the deepest sence imaginable of godly sorrow working repentance unto salvation not to be repented of So ended the life of that excellent man That great owner of those two heroique vertues Humility and a Publick spirit And of whom it may be said That never was Clergyman freer from Pride and Covetousness After such a life and such a death he deserved to have two banners carried before and after his herse The one inscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the honour of him that lived well The othe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the honour of him that dyed well And the proper elogy on his Tomb is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is a gain unto me both to live and to die FINIS