Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	rejoice_v	use_v	weep_v	1,848	5	9.5776	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44439	A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures by Ezekiel Hopkins ...	Hopkins, Ezekiel, 1634-1690.	1693 (1693)	Wing H2735; ESTC R37910	158,868	429

secret Counsel To speak a little briefly to this God appoints the time of Man's life Dan. 5.23 First God hath punctually and exactly determined the time of our Death to a very moment The great God in whose hands our Lives our Breath and all our Ways are he turns up our Glass and puts such a measure of Sand into it and no more it is he that prefixes it to run to such a length of Time and then determines it shall run no longer It is he who is Lord of all Time that writes our Names upon so many Days and Hours as we shall live as upon so many Leaves of his Book and it is impossible for us to live one Day or Hour that hath not our Name written upon it by him from all Eternity It is God that sets every one the Bounds of their living as well as the Bounds of their habitations Acts 17.26 beyond which they shall not be able to pass The Embryo that dies before ever it sees the Light fills up its appointed time by God as well as he that lives to decrepit old Age. And therefore though the Scripture and we use to say Such or such an one is taken away in the midst of his days yet simply in it self considered that is impossible the whole Tale of days that God hath appointed to every one must be fulfilled and that to a very moment according as the number of them is set down by God from all eternity Such Expressions as these denote no more than either that God cuts them off in the full strength and vigour of their years when yet they might according to the course of Nature and humane probability have lived longer or else comparing the shortness of their Lives with the length of others God seems to break it off in the very midst before he had finished his Work I shall not enter into a Dispute whether the Term of Life be fixed or moveable Methinks Job hath fully stated and determined the Question Job 7.1 Is there not says he an appointed time to Man upon Earth Are not his days also like the days of an Hireling Now an Hireling hath a time of Service prefixed which when it is expired he is discharged from his Labour God hath sent all Men into the World as so many Hirelings and as soon as these days are expired he takes them from their labour to their reward Are not my days as the days of an Hireling So Job speaks also in another Chapter concerning Man His days are determined Job 14.5 the number of his Months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass What can be more punctual and particular It is true however that though God hath thus numbred out our days and set us our bounds yet we may well say That whoever dies might have lived longer had they made use of the right Means As Martha said unto our Saviour Luke 11.21 Lord if thou hadst been here my Brother had not died So may we say If such and such Means had been used and such Remedies applied this or that Person had not died but withal we must observe also that that God who hath prefixed to every one his Term of Life hath also ordained in his own Counsel and Purpose that those Means that are proper to prolong Life beyond that Term should through some unavoidable mistake or mishap either not be known or not used This therefore may be of great support unto us as against all inordinate Fears of our own Death so against all inordinate grief and sorrow for the Death of others to consider that all our Times are in God's hands he measures out every day to us and as he hath appointed bounds to us beyond which we shall not pass so also hath he appointed that we shall certainly reach unto those bounds His all wise Providence disposeth of the meanest and smallest Concernments of our Lives and therefore much more of our Lives themselves and if a Hair of our Heads cannot much less shall not we our selves fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father Secondly As God hath appointed the exact critical Hour so also the particular Manner of our Death It is he that appoints whether it shall be sudden or foreseen by Diseases or by Casualty whether the Thred of our Life shall be snapt in pieces by some unexpected Accident or worn and fretted away by some tedious and lingring Consumption or burnt asunder by some fiery Fever In whatever manner or shape Death may appear to us is a Secret known only unto God but this we know that it is always his Serjeant and wears his Livery and all the Circumstances of our Death are of God's appointment as well as our Death it self And in whatever shape it shall appear to us if we diligently endeavour by a holy Life to prepare our selves for it it shall not be frightful or terrible to us Now to make some Practical Improvement of this And Vse 1 First If God thus unalterably appoints to us our last period if he hath thus appointed us to Die if all men are concluded under that irrevocable Law let this then serve to convince us of the gross and notorious folly of setting our Affections eagerly upon this present World a World that we must shortly leave behind us Death within a very little while will most certainly pluck us from it and it will prove a violent rending to us if our Affections are inordinately set upon any thing here below It was a strange and perverse use also that the Ancient Heathens made of the necessity of dying when in their Feasts their custom was to bring in the resemblance of an Anatomy to their Guests thereby to excite them to Mirth and Voluptuousness whilst they should relish such delights as were then before them because shortly they must be as much dust and bones as what they saw 1 Cor. 15.32 Like those the Apostle makes mention of who said let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die But how much better use doth the same Apostle teach us to make of this when in the same Epistle he tells us but this I say Brethren the time is short Why what then why says he it remains therefore that they that have Wives be as though they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this World as not abusing it for the fashion of this World passeth away Death one would think should beat down the price of the World in every wise man's esteem Why should we lay out our affections upon those things from which we may be ravisht in a moment Both they and we perish in the using of them they are dying comforts and we must die also that enjoy them Oh! what Folly then is it to toil and wear away our