Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	heart_n	pray_v	prayer_n	13,124	5	6.7659	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76092	Sick-bed thoughts, upon those words of the apostle in Phil. 1, 23 ... Part. I containing an answer to that great and solemn question, what that state and condition is, which a person must be found in, before he can have good and sufficient ground, not to be affraid, or unwilling to dye? / by J.B.	Batchiler, John, ca. 1615-1674.	1667 (1667)	Wing B1075; ESTC R42879	47,054	145

patientiam the minde ought to be armed with patience as well for Death as for Life The sufferings which we may meet with in both may call for it and what he farther saith Epist 95. is too true Interdum obnixè petimus quod oblatum recusaremus multa videri volumus velle sed nolumus aliud optamus verum ne Diis quidem dicimus Sometimes that which we earnestly wish for 't is of death he speaks when 't is offered us we refuse wee seem to will many things which yet we again reject and desire something else in the room of it and so speak not the truth even to God himself would not one wonder that a poor Heathen should speak thus Cyprian in his Book De Mortal utters himself almost in the same manner and with great elegancy Quam praeposterum est quamque perversum cum Dei voluntatem fieri postulemus quando evocat nos accersit de hoc mundo non statim voluntatis ejus imperio pareamus hoc nitimur reluctamur pervicacium more servorum ad conspectum Domini cum tristitia maerore perducimur non obsequio voluntatis Et volumus ab eo praemiis caelestibus honorari ad quem venimus inviti How preposterous and perverse a thing is it that we pray to God that his will may bee done and yet when he calls us hence and sends for us out of this world we do not presently obey his Soveraign will but oppose it struggle against it and like untoward Servants are afraid to appear in the presence of our Lord With sorrow and grief we are dragged to him rather than go to him in obedience to his command We go unwillingly to him and yet desire to be honoured by his Heavenly rewards And then a little after Quid rogamus petimus ut adveniat regnum caelorum si captivitas nos terrena delectat Quid precibus frequenter iteratis rogamus poscimus ut acceleret dies regni si majora desideria vota potiora sunt servire isthic Diabolo quam regnare cum Christo Why do we pray and desire that the Kingdome of Heaven may come if we be still in love with our Earthly captivity Why do we so frequently desire that that day may hasten if we have greater desires and do more strongly wish rather to abide here in the Devils Service than to Reign with Christ thus we see even many ages since not onely among Christians but among Heathens what a kinde of Hypocrisie they reckoned it to be to seem to long for Heaven and an immortal state and yet when the time comes for such a blessed change to be loath to go to it Una ista catena amor vitae quàm nos alligatos tenet Sen. Epist 26. How doth that one chain the love of life hold us here as Prisoners saies Seneca Whoever thou art then that reckonest thy self a true Christian and a Believer let these passages even of an Heathen affect thee and hereafter cause thee to blush for shame at thine own fears But Secondly That thou maist the better get over these thy fears and be the more ready with chearfulness to welcome Death when it comes do these three things 1. Be every day preparing to dye and putting thy self into a posture for it among the many excellent passages that Seneca hath about this subject even through most of his works there are two of them worthy to bee written in letters of Gold One is in his Book de brev vitae c. 7. Vivere totâ vitâ discendum est quod magis fortasse miraberis totâ vitâ discendum est mori A man all his life time had need be learning to live and which perhaps thou wilt more marvel at he must be all his life-time learning to dye too The other is in his 30th Epist Magna res est diu discenda cum adventat hora illa inevitablis aequo animo exire It is a great thing and alwaies to be learned that when that inevitable hour of death comes we may depart this life with a well-composed minde which who can do but he that hath set all things right and so having attained to a meetness to partake of the inheritance of the Saints hath left nothing farther to be done in order to the getting into the possession of it but to breathe forth his last breath 2. Meditate much upon death and that every day that so you may thereby grow familiar with it This the Holy Ghost calls the wisdome of man and that which every good man prayes that he may be enabled to do Moses himself did so Psalm 99.12 so teach us to number our dayes saith he that we may apply our hearts unto wisdome and whoever hath any of that Spirit which moved in him will do the like When I read that passage of Plato apud Plut. de placit Philosoph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They best act the true Philosophers that are most sollicitous about death I am apt to think sure hee had read this prayer of Moses yet among all that sort of antient Writers I finde Pythagoras who lived in the time of the siege of Jerusalem by the Caldean Army and so in the Prophet Jeremiah's daies at least two hundred years before Plato and so according to our learned Usher's account some six hundred and forty years before Christ's Nativity was the first that called Phylosophy the Meditation of Death after whom Socrates also and many others had the like expressions which makes me think had these and the rest of those famous men even among the Heathen that knew nothing of the true God been alive in our daies and been blessed with such a saving light of the Gospel as some few are what rare instances would they have been How would they have out-stripped us in their affections and desires Heaven-ward and in their Masteries over Death and the fear of it How would they have made it their great business to converse with Death even as much as we are wont to do with our intirest friends They which made Phylosophy chiefly to consist in the Meditation of death would have made the Christian Religion to consist in it much more 3. Store your selves with passages from the holy Scriptures replenish your minde with the great and precious Promises let Divine Truths and the Heavenly Sentences thereof dwell in you richly in all Spiritual Wisdome and Understanding that so when you lie upon your Sick or it may be your Dying-Beds you may have them so fixed in your heads and hearts that they may afford much sweet and precious matter unto your thoughts If you make this a good part not onely of your business but of your delight too in your life-time may you not well hope and expect that when Death comes the Holy Ghost will bring things to your remembrance and apply such Cordials from thence to you as shall marvellously comfort and refresh you even when the pangs of death it self shall bee upon you Many and pleasant are the stories that might here be told of the great and powerful consolations that have come in upon Dying Saints from this or that Promise or other Passage of Scripture upon the wings whereof they have gone up in Triumph to Heaven FINIS

any breach of Gods holy and righteous Law any act that may satisfie his own evil heart be it never so foul either sees no hurt or will see none in it is willingly ignorant as the Apostle speaks in another case 2 Pet. 3.5 and to that end hates to be reformed cannot endure a soul-searching Ministry or a plain-dealing Friend that may convince him of the sinfulness of his heart and waies and so lies drowzing under a sleepy and kinde of dead Conscience or else if his Conscience doth stir at any time and begin either latrare or lacerare to barke and it may be to bite too what doth he do presently Doth he not do by this his barking and biting Conscience ready to fly in his face as a man that hath a fierce Mastiff-Dog tye him up or Muzzle him Thus he deals with his Conscience and that he may bee the less at leisure to hearken to or hear the brawlings of it is it not his common practise to go into some such company or engage in some such business or indulge himself in some such pleasure recreation or other sinful divertizement as may wholly take him off from giving any the least attendance or regard to it So long as he can keep his eyes open he is thus employed and when night comes what care doth he take either to ingorge or intoxicate himself so as he may sleep it out till day-light returns or at least that hour of it that gives him the advantage of his accustomed course of sinning with his wicked Companions day after day Thus he lives and wastes his precious time not caring or knowing how soon death may Arrest him and spoil his sport Fourthly and Lastly A regenerate person is a man Crucified to the World and the World to him He is no more moved or affected with the pleasures the delights and lying vanities of this world than a living man is pleased with the presence of a dead Wife lying by him and all the splendours grandeurs blandishments allurements and bewitchments of this world work no more upon him than upon a dead man that hath neither sense nor motion nor life in him But yet in the mean while though his heart be dead to this world world and all the fine toyes and trifles of it so as all the wealth riches gauderies and glories thereof be nothing to him yet he is so wise as to minde the things of the other world these as he highly prizeth and values them at their just rate so he earnestly seeks after them His whole business lies here namely by patient continuance in well-doing to seek for glory honour immortality eternal Life Rom. 2.7 and this being the trade hee drives every step he treads is towards Heaven and to a being made meet for the enjoyment of it Contrariwise an unregenerate person takes quite another course he is all for earth and for earthly things all for either the profits of the world if his heart be choaked with covetous cares and thoughts or for the pleasures of the world if he be a bruitish sensualist or for the honours dignities and high-places of the world if he be of a lofty and proud Spirit As for the injoyment of God or the saving of his soul they are matters too serious for him to minde mundus cum suis frivolis the frivolous World is his Idol and that he will adore though with the losse of Heaven it self and all the blisses thereof for ever which being so may we not conclude that every step he treads is towards Hell and that he is ripening apace for it Thus we see what a vast difference there is between a regenerate person and an unregenerate in their lives Let us see now what the difference is in their deaths The regenerate person 1. Hath no stings nor gaulings of Conscience his main worke is done when he comes to lye upon his dying-Bed It hath been his every daies work to set things right and to keep them so to the utmost of his endeavour betwixt God and him to get and grow up into an intire friendship with him and still to call himself to an account for every thing that might offend and with all speed to hasten to the blood of sprinkling to be washed and cleansed he would never be at rest so long as guilt remained upon his own heart or one frown in the face of God towards him But this the unregenerate person never did nor would ever by any means be perswaded to it self-Examination self-Reflexion and self-Judging were Duties which he was alwaies a stranger to these were works for an awakened and a tender Conscience which he never had nor desired to have and so now judicially is given up happily to a Conscience past feeling and that cannot be sensible of any thing 2. In case a regenerate and holy person should be under some little clouds for a while and through the malice of Satan by Divine permission be somewhat damped in his inward peace and comfort when hee is about his last work of dying yet as hath been said there is no just reason why it should be thus with him and 't is very rare that any good man or woman is long vexed thus but to be sure the storm ends at last and the rest of their passage is usually under a pleasant and fair gale God himself as I may so say sitting at the sterne and the holy Angels spreading the Sails And Oh then the calmness of their mindes the serenity of their peace the inward quiet of their souls how great is it How is not Death then at all dreadful but rather a welcome Messenger which they now look for and wonder that his Chariot wheels move no faster which blessed repose being now cast into after their buffetings and combates with Satan on a sudden they breathe forth their perfumed breath and so fall asleep in Jesus But alas How far otherwise is it with a wicked unregenerate man when he comes to this dying worke For if his Conscience be not so far seared blinded and left judicially insensible as was but even now mentioned but is let loose upon him and inabled by the God of Conscience to charge him and accuse him home If it calls all his sins to remembrance and sets them in order before him a work which sometimes God to shew his Power will assist this or that wicked mans Conscience in as himself speaks Psal 50.21 I say when once Conscience acts this part upon some obstinate and impenitent wretch and hath a commission so to do Oh then the roarings the yellings the howlings of such a Conscience How then doth death come with all its stings how doth Hell fire flash in his face with all its flames And how doth the Devil himself as 't were haunt and affright him with all his Feinds Oh now the horrors the terrors the soul-sinking over-whelming dreads that are upon him may not his Name bee now changed into magor-missabib