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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	faith_n	jesus_n	justify_v	17,800	5	8.9787	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78140	A sermon preached at the funerall of the Right Honourable and most excellent lady, the Lady Elizabeth Capell dowager. Together with some brief memorialls of her most holy life and death. By Edm. Barker, late chaplain to her Honour, and now rector of Buriton in Hampshire.	Barker, Edmund, b. 1620 or 21.	1660 (1660)	Wing B766; Thomason E1046_14; ESTC R38546	36,267	67

Instar nihili even as nothing just as a point to the circumference of the widest circle and not so much as the smallest drop to the main Ocean Holy Iobs resemblance of our lives to a flower Chap. 14. 2. is elegant and very expressive which in the morning is green and groweth up but in the evening is cut down dryed up and withered see betwixt green and withered flourishing and fading growing up and cut down what a small space and distance of time there is but the respite of a day at most the space of a few hours at longest just such is the brevity and fadingnesse of our lives here Our growing up in the morning of our childhood our flourishing in the high noon of our mans estate and then soon after it growes to be evening with us and we begin to fall into our declensions and first our senses begin to droop next our memories to fail next our strength to decay and grow weak after that our heat to retire inward and thus we continue dying by little and little untill at length death comes with his Sickle and cuts down the flower and we die for good and all Oh that men would think seriously on these things doubtlesse it must needs make them more frugall of their time and mightily work them off of the world and make them lesse delighted and enamoured with this present life and daily more longing and desirous and thirsting after heaven where they shall be sure to have a longer time of stay and continuance and shall ever be with the Lord and not be thus hastily hurried and posted away as here they are When holy David would fain have obteined favour and respite from God Almighty he useth this very argument to him Psal 89. 47. Oh remember how short my time is In like manner were I to perswade any man unto piety and devotion unto abstinence and mortification unto a contempt of the world and a love and desire of heaven I should repeat over the same words unto him Oh man remember how short thy time is how few dayes thou hast to live in the world how little time to lay in thy provision and to doe thy work and businesse of Eternity oh then sin away none idle away none and if it were possible loose none of this precious time thou seest it is but short at most but a little in all and thou canst full ill spare any of it for sin and vanity which when best emproved is but just enough if indeed enough for thy work Herodotus relates a story of one Mycerinus King of Egypt who being told by the Oracle that he should live but twelve years longer used this device with himself he sits up all night and spends that whole time in feasting and jollity and thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the story turning as it were his nights into dayes thought by this means he had doubled the number of his years and so cheated the Oracle Now the device of this heathen King I shall not commend unto you at this time especially not in this way and manner of practice but yet why may we not by the way borrow a Iewell of this Egyptian and emprove his policy into an item of seasonable instruction and admonition And howbeit I cannot premptorily tell any of you as the Oracle did him that yet within twelve years and ye shall all die yet this I think I may say how soon God knows but not long hence we our selves by experience and the example of others may probably conclude and know that it will be necessary for us to die and give over living any longer Oh then let us up and to work let us lay out providently and bestir our selves as speedily as may be to double the number of our dayes even by turning our nights into dayes Not in the manner of that heathen King in practises of excesse and intemperance but in exercises altogether of piety and devotion turning our nights of vanity into dayes of sobriety our nights of intemperance into dayes of mortification our nights of slumber and idlenesse into dayes of vigilance and diligence take it in the Apostles words Rom. 13. 11. Knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep let us cast off the works of darknesse and let us put on the armour of light Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkennesse not in chambering and wantonnesse not in strife and envying But putting on the Lord Iesus Christ putting on his justifying righteousnesse by application of faith and putting on his sanctifying righteousnesse by imitation of practise and so doing we shall make a long life of a short As holy Hierom reports of one Nebridius a young man ad Salvinam Epist 9. In brevi aetate tempora multa complevit He continued but a little while here but yet lived a long life meaning as I suppose that the pietie of his life did farre surpasse and exceed the paucitie and tendernesse of his years Let this also suffice for the second importance of this dutie of numbring our daies implying Meditationem brevitatis an often meditation of the shortnesse and brevity of our lives A second importance is recogitatio incertitudinis a frequent recogitation of the inconstancy and uncertainty of our beings here to day and gone to morrow and what a next hour may bring forth or do hang over our heads every moment we cannot tell God knows The utmost that any present comfort or enjoyment can afford us is onely a probability of hope for to be sure certainty it affords none and we see the fairest hopes do many times miscarry in their issues not unlike promising blossomes either the frost nips them or the wind blows them down ere they can come to ripen into fruit and maturity Speras pecuniam sayes holy Augustine Enar. in Psal 3. 8. incertum est an proveniat speras filios incertum est an nascantur nati sunt incertum est an vivant vivunt incertum est an proficiant quocunque te verteris incerta sunt omnia Doest thou hope to be rich it is uncertain whether thou shalt grow to be so doest thou expect children it is uncertain whether they will be born are they born it is uncertain whether they will live do they live it is uncertain whether they will prove dutifull and towardly whether soever thou turnest thy self all things are uncertain Holy David doubtlesse in the midst of his great honour and prosperity thought himself very secure and certain for so if you will believe him he tells us Psal 30. 6. I said in my prosperity I shall never be removed but yet you see at what uncertainties he then stood and how soon the scene was changed with him and presently a new face of things appeared upon the stage vers 7. thou didst hide thy face from me and I was troubled Oh! that this meditation were deeply engraven on all our hearts and

what a sad condition is this to die in and what think you shall become of us when the rich man in the Gospel was busie in building his Castles in the air and dreaming of nothing but ease and comfort and projecting years of rest and happinesse to his life he little thought I 'le warrant you of a summons the same night and that before morning his life should have an end put to it and his soul required of him And yet so you see it happened to him and who of us all know that possibly it may not be his own case Oh! how should this quicken us to continual warinesse and watchfulnesse to diligent circumspection and observation to lose as little of our time here carelesly and frivolously as may be but to be sure to throw away none of it sinfully at any rate which makes out the second application of our hearts unto wisdome consisting in Cautius vivendo in living more cautiously and warily for the time to come A third and last instance lies in sapientius providendo in providing more wisely against the day of our change when the unjust Steward in the Gospel Luke 16. understood that his Lord had a purpose to displace him and turn him out of his Stewardship see how wisely he consults and projects and casts about with himself vers 3. What shall Idoe for my Lord taketh from me the Stewardship well I am resolved what to doe yea and if you mark it too our Saviour commends this wisdome of his and chides his Disciples for their lack of like timely wisdome and prudence and why yet a little while and our reckonings also will be called for and our selves required to give in our accounts of our Stewardships and Then we must be no longer Stewards and would it not be wisdome in us timely to project and cast about with our selves and not throw all our provision upon our last minutes and have our evidences then to clear and our assurances of another life to make good when we are every moment upon leaving of this The Apostle's counsell is very safe 1 Tim. 6. 19. Laying up for your selves a good foundation against the time to come See here a good foundation that is a foundation of good works the foundation of an holy life of a pious and godly conversation So then good works they are you see in a good sense a foundation though not of faith or presumption though not a foundation either to boast off or to build upon yet a foundation to take hope and comfort in now a foundation you know is that which in great measure supports and bears up the whole building in like manner a conscience of good works it bears up Faith it bears up Hope it bears up Patience it makes joyfull and willing and comfortable in the hour of death This is our rejoycing saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 1. 12. the testimony of our conscience well but mark further laying up in store but when I trow or where why even in this life now presently out of hand it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present tense and we must not make altogether a future duty of it well but once more Laying up in store for your selves that is to your proper use and service for your own interest and advantage See what ever good works are piously laid out by us are also providently laid up for us we are the chief gainers by them and we receive the benefit and we do reap the comfort of them in a word we lay them up for our selves Well but against when do we lay them up why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Apostle against the time to come But what time to come is this there is a two-fold time to come the one futurum mortis the time to come of our death and so good works are fundamentum solatii a foundation of joy and comfort to support and stay us to rejoyce and cheer us in that sad and melancholy hour The other is futurum judicii the time to come of the last Tribunall and Iudgement and so good works are fundamentem fiduciae a foundation of courage and confidence according to that of the Apostle 1 Iohn 2. 28. And now little children abide in him that is in your Faith in his Name in your obedience to his commands in a word in your practice of a holy life that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming But I see I must be forced to break off abruptly and conclude my discourse on this Text here And indeed I have another Text still behind to preach upon and that too given me by God Almighty The former was given by the direction of his Spirit in his holy Scriptures This latter by the wise order and disposition of his providence here exposed and presented before your eyes the former a legible this a visible Text of that I have hitherto discoursed and am coming now to speak somewhat of this also A Text affording much plenty and variety of seasonable matter both for the more vigorous quickning of your affections for the present and also for the future example of your piety Like a well kept Garden here is choice of sweet flowers but no weeds no beggery stuffe at all howbeit I shall be very sparing in comparison of the plentifulnesse of the subject and not take upon me to gather together all the goodly flowers which sometime grew in this pleasant Garden but present you with a small handfull onely not intending to satisfie the curiosity of craving expectations but to beget a good appetite in all and to set you alonging after more And indeed how can it otherwise be imagined that such a whole life of exemplary virtue and piety as this excellent Ladies was can be without sensible losse and injury contracted within that scant and little allowance of time which is now remaining He that covets to take up a number of scattered pieces of Gold in the hollow of his hand will go nigh to loose many some will slip through his fingers let him be never so wary however it be I shall run the adventure and chuse rather to be silently injurious to her exemplary piety which her living modesty I am sure would have pardoned then be openly too imposing upon your patience So that my work you see at present is not so properly the part of an Oratour as the office of a Notary or Remembrancer not intending to discourse over the whole story of her life at large a work for volumes and ages but as it were in characters and short hand to present you some few memorialls of her signall and incomparable piety This most excellent Lady the Lady Elisabeth Capell the solemnization of whose Funerals is the sad occasion of this dayes meeting was as to her naturall pedigree and extraction descended of the right worthy and renowned Family of the Morisins at Cashiobury in Hertfordshire One