Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	death_n	know_v	resurrection_n	1,580	5	9.6777	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67031	Chous epitreohomenos, or, The dust returning to the earth being a sermon preached at the interrment of that excellently accomplisht gentleman Tho. Lloyd Esq. late of Wheaten-Hurst in the county of Gloucester upon Tuesday the 22nd of December, 1668 / by Tho. Woolnough.	Woolnough, Thomas, ca. 1630-1675.	1669 (1669)	Wing W3530; ESTC R27625	15,883	23

all this Must not thou shortly to the Land of Darkness Must not this Body of thine resolve into rottenness and putrefaction 2. See we hence how little the Grandeur and Gawdery of this World is worth that the Body must to the Grave when all is done it must to Earth Pallaces and Crowns cannot keep off Death Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede Pauperum tabernas Regumque turres saith Horace aptly Tell not Death when it approacheth of Noble Blood of great Estate of Honours and the like all these signifie nothing Art thou a Son of Adam yea or no Is thy Body from the Earth If that thou canst not deny he values not thy high looks If from Earth thou camest to Earth thou must return Thy Mother Earth saith he desires thy embraces be not too proud to own her yet if thou beest it matters not I bring power enough with me to force a stronger than thy self This same Honour is a taking thing See Men in their Ruffe in all the Pageantry of Fortune and weak eyes will be dazled by their splendor who would not desire to be in their case and say with Saint Peter at the Transfiguration It is good for us to be here I but follow a great Man to the Grave see him but making this return see his Body descend into the Slymy Valley the Dust returning to the Earth as it was and then who can envy him His G●ory and his Pomp shall not descend after him saith the Psalmist Psal 49. 17. Again 3. If the Body must to the Earth let us be advised hence to endeavour whilst we are here to redeem our selves from the power of the Grave by worthy actions Our Bodies must rot let us not so carry our selves as that our Names should do so too that is the Curse of the Wicked Prov. 10. 7. The name of the wicked shall rot but The memory of the just is blessed saith the same verse There are three things belonging to every Man his Soul his Body his Name the one must die the other cannot die the third may be preserv'd The Soul must live for ever in weal or wo the Body will to the Earth none can help it To procure the dissolution of the one or reprieve the other from death is not in our power but the keeping alive our Name is in our own hand This is one of the Stoicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is in our power by deserving well or ill of the World to leave a sweet savour or a stink behind us It is the advice which Pliny the younger a man no less ingenious than learned gives his Friend from the consideration of the shortness of life in the 70th Epist of his Third Book Sed tanto magis hoc quicquid est temporis futilis caduci sed non detur factis certe studiis proferamus quatenus nobis denegatur diu vivere relinquamus aliquid quo nos vixisse testemur This most concerns Persons of rank and quality that have many eyes upon them that are taken notice of in the World by reason of the inequality of their height they being like Saul higher by the head and shoulders than the rest of the people for such Persons to live in a Cloyster like Snails in their Houses to steal away like Plebeians through the Crowd unseen to have their way like the way of a ship in the sea without track to leave no token that they were unless this That they begat Children What a Disgrace What a shame Much more to live onely in the Curses of the People to be remembred for naught but Cruelty and Oppression grinding the faces of the poor and the like The generous spirits among the Heathens were alwayes wont to affect immortality which for that their bodies could not reach and to the Doctrine of the Soul they were in great part strangers they endeavoured by their vertues to supply and make out wh●… was wanting to the frailty of their Bodies 'T is true we are acquainted with the Souls immortality and know that death makes not an end of the whole Man we know that there shall be a resurrection of the Body too but yet next to the care of providing for the Souls happy Eternity should be that of leaving a good Name behind us A good Name which is as pretious Oyntment Eccles 7. 1. This is the way to deliver our selves from Death indeed Never doth he die whose Soul lives in Heaven and whose Name lives in the World the Grave hath onely its Thirds in such Cases which cannot be denied it I have done with the Body to which our first Proposition had respect and I fear I have given it too large a share so great is the advantage of coming first It were pity that the Souls part should be scanted I 'le do it what right I can by the leave of the time and your patience And the Spirit shall return to God that gave it The Spirit is from God That is the first part of the Proposition which we are now to improve And so 1. Learn we hence to think aright of the Dignity of our Souls they are of a heavenly Extraction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are his Off-spring Acts 17. 28. Is not this Soul too good to debase to the service of sin to the service of Satan What Did the Soul come from God and shall it be given to the Devil God forbid What a Fool was Esau to sell his Birth-right for a Mess of Pottage Worse Fools are all they that sell their Souls for the Pleasures of Sin less substantial than so meer smoak and air We laugh at them who having Estates descending to them from their Ancestors improvidently squander them away No Spend-thrift like the Sinner who trifles away his Soul the Gift of God 2. Learn we the immortality of the Soul if it be from God that is as we have seen immediately created by him then can it never cease to be by the means of any thing besides him He only who gave it a being can take away its being He can annihilate it if he pleaseth otherwise it must needs remain That which is made of matter can be no more durable than that matter of which it is made Hence the Earthen Body must of necessity have its period It is one property of Earth to be friabilis subject to crumble into dust but the Soul having no prae-existent matter but being created of nothing is necessarily evinc'd to be à parte post eternal 3. Did God give us our souls Let us then bequeath them to him to keep He onely can keep them who created and gave them It is St. Peter's counsel to commit our Souls to God in well doing as to a faithful Creator 1 Pet. 4. 19. where he hints at this very thing that we are upon viz. the resigning of our Souls to God upon this consideration That we had them from him To the same purpose speaks St. Paul

man do to appear before that God whom he hath so much offended and apprehends to be his enemy He saith within himself at such a time in the language of Ahab to the Prophet Hast thou found me O mine Enemy But the righteous will then hold up his Head with comfort and confidence The righteous is bold as a Lion Prov. 28. 1. And as Sin Commission of Evil so 2. Beware of Slothfulness Omission of Good Let us not be slothful in business but fervent in Spirit serving the Lord as Rom. 12. 11. The slothful Christian will be ashamed that God should see and call him to an accompt he is able to shew so little that he hath done so little use that he hath made of the time and talents lent him by God Hath he hid his Talent in a Napkin How must he needs blush when the improvement of it is inquired into and when he sees others give God his own with usury as Matth. 25. 20. This is a degenerate Soul which may well be asham'd to appear before God a Soul which seems to be Earth as well as the Body for so St. Chrysostom I remember speaks of him that hid his Talent in the Earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The diligent person is the person who can with some good measure of Confidence approach the presence of his Maker at this return Seest thou a man diligent in his business saith Salomon he shall stand before Kings c. Prov. 23. 29. Again 2. If we would have our Souls comfortably return to God let us labour here so to trim and adorn them as that they may be in some measure fit for such an approach as being sutable to him God is a holy God and loves holiness let us endeavour to be like him Perfecting holiness in the fear of God Let us purifie our selves even as he is pure Strive to be perfect as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect Matth. 5. 48. Let us put on by Faith the White Robe of Christs spotless Righteousness that the shame of our nakedness may be hid We need not then be asham'd that God should see us if we come thus cloath'd Men are loath to be surpriz'd by Great Persons in their old Habit and Attire but if they have had time to shift and adorn themselves they come forth confidently The case will be the same here Let us not dare to carry our old Natures into Gods presence Let us put off the old man and put on the new which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4 22 23 24. Let us labour to have our Souls beautified with the Graces of the holy Spirit and let not those Graces sleep in the habit neither but be put forth into act Let us stir up the gift of God that is in us according to the Apostle's Counsel to Timothy 1 Ep. 1 cap. 6 ver Let it not be sufficient that we have Oil in our Lamps but let us trim those Lamps also as they did Matth. 25. 7. and be in readiness to meet the Bride-groom Many men are habitually prepared for this return to God but for want of that actual preparation which is requisite they go out of the World uncomfortably their Sun sets in a Cloud there is not that abundant entrance administred unto them into the heavenly Kingdom which otherwise there might have been They return like Weather-beaten tatter'd Ships into the Port with Masts broken and Sayles torn and although they find fulness of joy in Gods presence yet come they not with that fulness of joy into his presence which were to have been wisht Consider what hath been said and the Lord give us understanding in all things I Have done with my Text and it may now justly be expected from me that I should speak something touching this our honoured Brother depared with whom I have had the happiness of being for the space of twice 7 years well acquainted Such a Theam I can assure you as falls not in a Ministers way every day and where it is much more difficult to determine what to leave out than to find out what to say I shall not touch at any thing which concerns his Extraction that is the Heralds work not mine and the Escutcheons may speak enough though I be silent Let them be copious in displayes of this Nature who have little else to say Stemmata quid faciunt Who boasts his Descent extolls his Ancestors and not himself That surely is most praise-worthy which is most our own I had rather blazon the Vertues of any Man than his Arms. And here oh for the Pencil of an Apelles that I might be able to promise a Draught somewhat worthy of the Original The onely commendation of his Picture would be its likeness to him and whom to strive to flatter would be to court an impossibility for Coelum non patitur hyperbolen Forgive me then thou alwayes great and now glorious Soul that I attempt to pourtray thy lineaments with so unskilful a hand whose perfections whilst I least express I shall yet herein most praise that I acknowledge them to be in-expressible Logicians have exempted transcendent beings from the Praedicamental Series nor did Aristotle take the worst course of commending his Master the Divine Plato when he ingeniously confesseth him to exceed commendation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet is it expedient that something should be said though all cannot and though Phaethon falls he falls not without the testimony of being at least a daring Undertaker HE was then a Gentleman in every dimension and the real owner of all those Accomplishments which the most accompt it enough but to pretend to In whom was to be found whatever from Excellent Parts of Nature improv'd by excellent Education Studies at home and Travails abroad might be expected He brought from beyond Sea the rich Commodities leaving the Apes and Peacocks behind him A Person of a quick Apprehension solid Judgement tenaceous Memory His Learning not onely vast and comprehensive as extending to the most of what was worthy to be known but profound also He div'd to the bottom of whatsoever he set himself to inquire into He was no Smatterer or Superficial Sciolist but a well-grounded and thorow-pac'd Scholar One who had eaten and digested the whole Encyclopaedy of Arts and Sciences and whose mind had not barely received a light Tincture of Knowledge but was even died in grain Whilest others minded Pleasures of a baser alloy he was for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the language of the Philosopher Pleasures intellectual and suted to the Gusto of a sublime raised a high-soaring Soul How assiduous he had been at his Studies witness the decay of his sight whilest yet but young he with a resolution worthy of himself choosing rather to endanger the darkening of his Body than to neglect the enlightning of his Mind The Company which he ordinarily kept was choice and select known to familiarly conversant with and highly esteemed by Men most eminent for Parts and Learning whether of our own Nation or Foreigners And when without such living company as was most acceptable to him he fail'd not to entertain himself and his time with the Discourse of dead but in their Works yet living Authors of which he had gotten together the most excellent of every sort nor was it possible for any Modern Piece worth reading to steal out into the World with which he was not wont quickly to become acquainted There was not a Controversie in Divinity which he had not trac'd not a nice School-Speculation to which he was a Stranger What the Orthodox say and what the Heterodox no man better knew and not many better able to distinguish between things that differ This for Intellectuals For his Morals He was a Person in whom gravity and affability were excellently mixt hugely serious and yet exemplarily civil and obliging No truer Friend no pleasanter Companion One he was in whom the Homilitical Vertues did all shine forth with equal splendor A man in all his Undertakings Prudent in all his Dealings Just Mature in his Deliberations Steady in his Resolutions Punctual in his Performances with whom to say and to do were onely not the same A Complemental Verbalist he was not his great Soul knew not so far to debase it selfe he was all Reality semper idem and if any was ever indeed so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And which much added to all the rest of his Perfections he was a Person of singular Modesty Learned and Wise in the Opinion of all men besides himself sparing of Discourse and apt rather to conceal than publish his own worth the onely Dissimulation wherewith he ever was acquainted Thus whilst the shallow waters make a noise the deep glide silently by and the Ship heaviest laden with rich Commodities hath least above water that is visible Such was his Life after which who can question that his Death was happy That Infirmities he might have I shall not dare to deny unless I could affirm him to have been an Angel and not a Man and indeed were it not for some few grains of allowance given in what Pieces would be weight Sufficeth it that Vertue where it is predominant God accepts and men ought to commend To conclude in a word He hath now made the two-fold Return in my Text his Dust is return'd to the Earth as it was and his Spirit to God that gave it To which God Father Son and Holy Ghost be rendred Honour Glory and Praise henceforth and for ever Amen FINIS