Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	earth_n	heaven_n	life_n	8,760	5	4.3162	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02087	Meditations and disquisitions upon the Lords prayer. By Sr. Richard Baker, Knight	Baker, Richard, Sir, 1568-1645.	1636 (1636)	STC 1223; ESTC S100533	121,730	220

MEDITATIONS AND DISQVISITIONS upon the Lords prayer By Sr RICHARD BAKER Knight PSAL. 119. 90. Tby Testimonies O God are my meditation LONDON Printed by ANNE GRIFFIN and are to be sold by ANNE BOVLER at the signe of the Marigold in Pauls Church-yard 1636. sweetest Influence for by it the feare which is due to the greatnesse of your Majesty is turned into a reverence of the Majesty of your vertues With this reverence I humbly present this Treatise to your Royall hands which though it informe you of nothing you knew not before yet it may put you in mind of something you might else forget and a good Remembrancer is none of the meanest amongst a Princes Officers But leaving this high worke to Apostolicall men of whom your Majesty hath many about you and some more eminent as Pillars I onely with low Zacheus climb up into this Tree of Devotion to make me in the contemplation of your vertues the fitter to pray that all the blessings on mount Gerizim in this life and in the next all the blessings which Christ preached on the Mount may be multiplied upon your sacred Majesty in your owne Person and in your Posteritie in our most gracious Queene MARY in our most hopefull Prince CHARLES and in all the rest of your Majesties most royall Issue Thus prayeth Your Majesties most humble and prostrate Subject RICHARD BAKER To my loving and learned friend and sometime Compupil at Oxford Sr. RICHARD BAKER Knight SIR I Conceive that you have beene pleased out of our ancient friend ship which was first and is ever best elemented in an Academy and not out of any valuation of my poore judgement to communicate with me your Devine Meditations upon the Lords Prayer in some severall sheetes which have given me a true taste of the whole Wherein I must needs observe and much admire the very Character of your Stile which seemeth unto mee to have not a little of the African Idea of St. Augustines age full of sweet Rapture and of researched Conceipts nothing borrowed nothing vulgar and yet all flowing from you I know not how with a certaine equall facility So as I see your worldly troubles have beene but Pressing-yrons to your Heavenly cogitations Good sir let not any modesty of your nature let not any obscurity of your fortune smother such an excellent imployment of your erudition and zeale For it is a worke of light and not of darknesse And thus wishing you long health that can use it so well I remaine Your poore Friend to love and serve you HENRY WOTTON HE ARE O HEAVENS HEARKEN O EARTH Our Saviour vouchsafes to be our Schoolemaster and meaning to finish our Redemption in his Death by delivering us from death the effect of our sinne He beginneth our redemption in his life by deliveriug us from Ignorance the cause of our Sinne. Wee were created in light by the Creator of light but the Prince of Darkenesse came informing us that our Lig●t was darkenesse whose mistie perswasions making us first doubt of a truth and then resolve of a falsehood brought us in the end to that passe that our Eyes indeed were opened but our sight was blemished wee saw more afterward then we had done before but wee saw worse afterward then wee did before For taking the Seducer for our leader and not seeing our way till seeing our selves out of our way The Light which shined in us as refused of us departed from us so that creeping now being our best pace and using as it were our Hands for Eyes wee could rather keepe our selves from falling in the wrong way then give our selves direction to returne unto the right Clowded thus with Ignorance the Light came to visit us and being thus strayed out of our way the Way it selfe descended to direct us that if we be not as disobedient auditours to Doctrine of obedience as we were Obedient hearkners to Counsell of Disobedience Hee will teach us to make advantage of our losse and to climbe the higher by the Fall we have taken Great was the losse which in our selves wee sustained and of all losse the greatest that we had lost the feeling of our losses and therefore very Divine was it requisite should be our repairer who before he could restore to us the power of our sences must qui●ken in us the sence of our weakenesse Great was the dar●nesse we had brought upon our selves being become not onely ignorant but dull and therefore very heavenly was it needfull should be our instructor who before he should give us a lesson to learne must give us an aptnesse whereby to learne This being a worke of as high a valew as our Creation could not be performed at a lower rate then our redemption and therefore Hee which was above the Angels and equall with God brought himselfe beneath the Angels and equall with man that as to Gods infinite Iustice there might be an infinite satisfaction so for our Fleshes infinite Offence there might be in our Flesh an infinite desert Thus sweet Iesu hast thou purchased to us a Power of Accesse to the Throne of Grace and thou hast purchased to thy selfe a Throne of Grace to h●ue power to say Hitherto yee have asked nothing in my Name Aske and ●eeshallreceive and now having given us a ri●ht to aske thou heere instructest us how to aske aright least otherwise wee have the Event foretold us by Saint Iames Yee aske and receive not because yee aske amisse And indeede None could so perfectly have informed us how God must be prayed to None could so well have taught us how man must be prayed for as Hee who being God as being th● Sonne of God and Man as being the Sonne of Woman had both the fulnesse of Wisedome dwelling in him and the Temptations of the Flesh making assaults upon him Certainly O Lord Thou wert not onely fittest but onely fit to discharge this Office being nothing agreeable for any to open his mouth against sinne but for thee against whom sinnes mouth is stopped and only agreeable for thee to teach us what words to say to thy Everlasting Father who art thy Fathers Everlasting Word Often he gave eare and so foolish were wee that we spake not Often wee spake and so offended was hee that hee gave no eare but so divinely hast thou performed thy office of Mediation making him first Gracious to Heare and now us wise to speake that being offended with all but Thee He is Reconciled to all in Thee and having through our transgressions though never unmercifully just as it were no use of his Mercy he hath now thorough thy satisfaction though never unjustly merciful as it were no work for his Iustice. O Immeasurable Bounty there is not any thing so great but thou biddest us to aske it and not any thing we aske but thou promisest us to grant it and now least wee should feare to aske as not

the world to come or else will bee concluded for unperfect may wee not very justly justifie it even in this kinde also Let us therefore take a review For though at the first looking wee have discovered nothing yet if wee continue looking as the servant of Eliah did wee shall perhaps discerne a Cloude arrising from the sea of these petitions that will serue to signifie a showre of blessings immediately to follow And we need not stand long a looking for doe not the very first words afforde us a Cloude For when we say Our Father doth it not imply that wee are his children and if the Father alwaies be in Heaven shall the children alwaies be on Earth how then is it true that where hee is we shall be also and that which Christ sayth the sonne abideth in the House for ever For how shall hee abide there if hee never come there seeing therefore Heaven is Gods House and we as children must in our time bee in the house with him we must necessarily at last come to be in Heaven and so one of the blessings is found here which was complayed of to bee wanting in the prayer And when it is savd Hallowed bee thy Name shall not Gods Name eternally bee hallowed If then wee bee appoynted to doe a worke which is eternall must not we be needes eternall that are to doe it and so to our being in Heaven is added eternity another of the blessings complayned of to be missing Let us now come to Thy Kingdome come and will not this afforde us to see the Cloude more plainely For the Kingdome is but in relation to the subjects if therefore the Kingdome bee perfect the subjects must bee perfect also for without perfection of subjects It can never bee a perfect Kingdome and what perfection of subjects could there bee if their should be no other subjects but onely Angels For so there should be but one ranke of subjects which in a Kingdome were a great imperfection To make therefore some other rankes for perfecting of this Kingdome wee also shall bee taken in and then certainely taken in whole and imire● both hody and soule for else the Kingdome should rule over but pieces of subjects which in a perfect Kingdome must not bee If then wee bee taken in whole and intire then must our bodies be raysed and joyned to our soules againe and this is our resurrection another of the blessings complayned of to be missing And may we not continue looking still and come to discerne the cloude yet playner For when it is sayd Thy Will bee done in earth as it is in Heaven are not we to doe as much worke as the Angels and if wee doe as much worke may wee not expect as much blessing and they behold the face of God continually and therefore wee certainely if wee doe the Will of God shall doe so to and so wee have found even the greatest of the blessings which were complayned of to bee missing in this prayer And we have found it here where we least expected it Eor indeed these petitions will afford divers waies of drawing forth these blessings from them according as wee take our standing to discerne the Cloude But this which is done may serve sufficiently to cleere this prayer from all imputation of imperfection seeing we have all the blessings now that can be thought of worth the having Eternall life and that in Heaven and that both in body and soule and in them both to enjoy the blessed vision of God which is life everlasting in its exaltation And now if any man thinke that to fetch the resurrection of our bodies and the rest of these blessings is farre fetched and from the Clouds indeed Let him consider how farre it was fetching it from the words of God to Moses I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaack and the God of Iacob and yet when Christ fetched it so farre it was taken for a proofe neere hand and for a Cloude of witnesses And indeede there is a benefit to us by this abstruse expressing for being lesse obvious It is more speculative in the searching and more meditative in the finding and the more it is wrapped up to the sence the more it is dignified to the understanding And though these Petitions may serve sufficiently to afford these Blessings yet there is a Petition behinde which though it make not so great a shew of a Cloude yet may prove to afford as great a showre of blessings as all the former For when we are delivered from all evill then if death bee evill we are delivered from death and to be delivered from death is life everlasting When we are delivered from all evill then if corruption of the body bee evill wee are delivered from that corruption and to be deliverd from that corruption is the very resurrection When wee are delivered from all evill then if restraint from the sight of God bee evill wee are delivered from that restraint and to bee delivered from that restraint is to be admitted into his presence and to enjoy his blessed vision And now this prayer reacheth full as high as Iacobs ladder and so we have ladder enough to carry us to Heaven and prayer enough to obtaine the blessings of Heaven wee are come to the Consummatum est which is not onely a finishing but a perfecting a perfecting in it selfe in being made perfect and a perfecting of us in making us perfect Let us therefore pray this prayer and let us pray that we may pray it seeing it can never bee too much sayd which can never be enough done Wee have now gone over these petitions as they lie in the prayer Ordine recto but doe they not invite us also to a consideration of them as they lie Ordine Inverso and apply hither that of Christ the first shall be last and the last first For the first of these petitions in our praying will be the last of Gods accomplishing and the last will prove the first and they seeme to have a correspondence to Gods favours shewed to the Israelites in their progresse in the Wildernesse For when wee say Deliver us from evill Is it not the first blessing wee receive from God that we are delivered from the bondage wee were in to satan and this was figured by Gods first favour shewed to the Israelites in delivering them from the captivity of Aegypt after many temptations with signes and wonders The next petition is our desire to bee forgiven and to have our sinnes washed away in the blood of Christ and was not this also figured to the Israelites in the Passover a figure of the true Lambe of God which taketh away the sinnes of the World And these two petitions are immediate to one another as the two favours were intermingled to the Israelites For there could not bee a deliverance without a Passover to them because there cannot bee to us The third petition is for our daily