Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	eternal_a	life_n	suffer_v	4,097	5	6.1063	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93662	Aphonologos. A dumb speech. Or, A sermon made, but no sermon preached, at the funerall of the right vertuous Mrs Mary Overman, wife to Mr Thomas Overman the younger. Of the parish, formerly called, Saint Saviours, or vulgarly Mary Overis, in Southwarke. By B. Spencer, minister of Bromley.	Spencer, Benjamin, b. 1595?	1646 (1646)	Wing S4942; Thomason E1180_3; Thomason C.54.aa.1(3); ESTC R208123	32,914	87

a day may bring forth Being without well-being is not worth our desires wee must looke to another life if wee desire to see good dayes and that is the life Christian which doth difference our lives from all others For our life is hid with Christ in God Coloss 3.3 and from this life wee are denominated as righteousnesse doth a righteous man for as Non vivere sed valere est vita not to live but to be in health is life the rest is sicknes and deaths equipage so not to live is a Christian life but to live godly God lookes Non tam multum sed quam bene not how long but how well wee live there is therefore not onely a life naturall but a life spirituall which prepares us for a life eternall as the wildernes of Sin and the Kingdome of Bashan did lead to Canaan This is when wee lead a naturall life after a spirituall manner as to be a Mary in contemplation and so anticipate the joyes of heaven or a Martha by good actions and so become our own rewarders by laying up for our selves a good foundation against the time to come that wee may lay hold of eternall life or like Lazarus to come out of the grave at the call of Christ or to make Christ our pattern who hath left us an example that wee should follow his steps or like St. Paul to make Christ our life that death may be our gain So I come to that life which puts a difference between other men The life different of a Christian and a Christian viz. to be their life Of this St. Paul speakes who made not the world his life nor his pleasure his life but as the worke of Christ was his meat and drinke so Christ was his life also This may be understood Operativè Or Objectivè First Operatively that is if I live Christ is my life by the operation of faith Gal. 2.20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me For Christ lives in a man by his Spirit by faith and by love First by his Spirit justifying me that his righteousnes is mine in the merit of it that he hath deserved for me to be held guiltlesse of all sin in the sight of God so by his spirit also sanctifying me to a new and true spirituall obedience lastly Rom. 8.16 exciting me by the same spirit to every good worke To this purpose St. Paul saith The spirit witnesseth to our spirits that wee are the sons of God This is Pignus salutis the pledge of our salvation Greg. which never goeth alone without the other for that spirit that gives the pledge of salvation giveth also the Robur vitae the strength of life by which those things are easie which before seemed hard and lastly Lumen scientiae the life of knowledge which like light doth illuminate what was darke and produceth what lay hid in our earthy natures Secondly Christ lives in me by faith urging me to believe that by his grace I am that I am Thirdly He lives in me by love by which fayth worketh me first to acknowledge my selfe to be his in all true obliegement and then to do him all manner of service Therefore St. Austin prayeth to God that his spirit may thus live in him Sanctum semper opus in me spira ut cogitem suade ut diligam urge ut faciam inspire me with thy holy worke perswade me to love urge me to do And so comes in the second sence of this text viz. Objectivè which I take to be here especially meant namely To me to live is Christ that is I accompt my life Christs to be spent and disposed of in him and for him to be spent in his service as David saith Psal 116.16 I am thy servant So all the Apostles write themselves CHRISTS and the CHURCHES servants the Pope writes himselfe so but t is meerly titular he Lords it too much over Gods inheritance to be a servant This is a good Christian complement when it is essentiall that whether wee live wee live to to the Lord or whether wee dye Rom. 14.8 wee dye to the Lord. Secondly To live to me is Christ if my life be willingly at his disposall as St. Paul said Acts 21.13 I am not ready onely to be bound but to dye for the Lord Iesus so that here we see if Christ be our life then our life must be Christs the one of these depends upon the other Christ hath bought us wee are not our owne Glorifie therefore saith the Apostle God in your bodies and in your spirits for they are Gods Wee must not live to our selves 1 Cor. 6.20 2 Cor. 5.15 let us first find that Christ is our life then the other wil be found also that our life shall be Christs for such an unionthere is between Christ and us as there is between the Head and the Members the Vine and the branches If the Body have a living Head the sense of the Body is derived from the Head and disposed of to the good of the Head and therfore here is set down that Christ is to me life because Christ is all in all to them that are his in the flux reflux of grace in the preventing operating in the donation and retribution Quest How shall I know Christ to be in me that I may say comfortably to my selfe That Christ is life to me Answ By the Spirit that he hath given us 1. Joh. 3.24 which Spirit is known by divers motions First by a purpose to obey God and an inclination to that purpose Therefore Christ minded Gods work with David Joh. 4.34 more then his dayly food and he was straitned till that was accomplished that he was sent to suffer but you must observe this purpose and inclination is in us not onely in extremities as in Pharaoh Exo. 9.28 while the rod was upon him he promised fair but even while we are in health and have the world at will God loves to be chosen as freely as he was forsaken and it is a great comfort to a man and a good token of Gods spirit when a man can say This good I did embrace and this evill I did forsake meerely for Gods cause without any other respect or constraint as Ioseph did Gen. 39 9. How can I do this great wickednes and sin against God The Devil as the Proverb is when he was sick would be a Monke which savours of more religion then those Monkes who while they be well will be devils but being well he was the devill still so many of us cry in affliction and pretend repentance but the storme being over we doe as he did that vowed to a Saint if he came safe to shore a wax Candle of twelve pound weight but when he came there he gave one

In a word let sin die before thee and then it cannot follow thee to judgment Feare not death but looke to the errour of your life break off sinne by repentance and entertaine Christ and death will be found without sting yea no crosse but a crowne no dart but a scepter shalt thou find in Christs hand or an olive in token of our victorie As confidently thou maist passe deaths teeth as once Ignat. did the teeth of wild beasts who said before hand when he was condemned I care not what death I suffer for seeing I am Gods corn I care not with what flaile of death he please to beat me out for I am willing to beground even by the teeth of these beasts that I may make cleane bread for Christ who became the bread of life for me How cheerfully may we then say Egredere anima mea egredere Goe forth my Soul Ps 142.9 to meet thy Saviour with David pray Lord bring my soul out of this prison that I may praise thy Name And with Saint Aug. Creasti nos ob te and Lord thou hast created us for thy selfe and I cannot be quiet til I come to thee And then shall begin that heavenly Epithalamium or wedding song of foure parts sung in Antiphona's and Responsories The Lamb saith Come and the Spirit saith Come and the Bride saith Come and thy soule shall say Come Lord Jesus come quickly So did this our deceased Sister Mrs MARY OVERMAN descended of an ancient and worthy Family of the Breretons marryed into an accomplished Family of the Overmans with whom though she found sufficiencie and satisfaction to her owne hearts desire yet she breathed after another life Not because she was sullenly faln out of love with the world but in love with Christ as appeared by her dying words which must eternize her memory when as a little before her dissolution this earnest and pious prayer departed from her first Lord when shall I come and appear before the presence of Christ my JESVS Dying MARY it seemes by this was ready for living CHRIST and living CHRIST as willing to receive dying MARY for soone after he took her to himselfe Who though she was weak in body yet was she strong in faith and hope which viaticum she had with her to strengthen her in her journey and to convey her soule into the hands of her Redeemer Herein as well approving as professing her selfe a true MARY in choosing that better part which now shall never be taken from her Next to Christ her Head in heaven she loved her Head on earth whom God had given her and like the Turtle loved her Mate yet was not like Rachel importunate for children nor yet dejected for want of them She spent her time not idly as many of her degree too usually doe even in these times whose miseries call to baldnesse and sackcloth but like another Dorcas she seemed to those that have seene her constant employment so farre from being idle that she was most an end well busied and full of good works So that as it was written of the Ladie Paula so it may be of Her too that she spent most of her time either in good workes or Gods worship Her chamber was not onely a shop of Confection as the fashion is but an Oratorie for Devotion Thirdly In a long and tedious consumption she behaved her selfe very patiently and knowing under whose hand she suffered opened not her mouth in any discontent and well perceiving it was the Lords doing thus to permit her to suffer she laid her downe and possest her soule in patience only with the meeke spirit of Iob intending Saint-like to imitate him in this her sanctified affliction in the depth of her consumption yet in the height of her devotion applyed ever and anon Jobs deploring words to her languishing selfe and like him wholy submitting her selfe to Gods dispoall said My months are moneths of vanity and sad nights are appointed for me And at other times in Davids words for she conversed much with dead Saints whiles she was living and had therefore learnt to use their language now she was dying when in his prayer he deciphered his miseries that he might the easier implore mercy Psalm 31.10 My life is consumed with greif and my years with sighing So that as Saint Ambrose said of one dying of such a disease so may we of hers that it seemd a martyrdome Yet was she not childishly afraid of death nor struggled she much to retaine life as some doe from whom God is faine as it were to teare away their soules but she offered up hers as a free-will-offering with a contempt of the world saying Away with all these things and with an earnest desire besides to be with Christ who having beene her life made death her gaine Which Text it seemes was some time since her owne meditation as appeares by her notes under her owne hand with this her devout paraphrase found upon them Heaven is my home I am a stranger here Which undoubtedly was the language of her heart as well as of her hand And if so what can we lesse perswade our selves she is then what she made her selfe by her pious endeavours a true a very MARY that is by interpretation Excellent Excellent in Contemplation thereby anticipating the joyes of heaven whilst she walkt upon the earth and excellent in action too her actions speaking her a perfect servant of the Almighty And therefore now no doubt after death a partaker of his glory with her fellow Saints for right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of such Saints so deare that he takes them into his bosome And for our parts we may say of her as Saint Hierome said of Fabiola Ex annulo Ecclesiae monile perdidimus We even wee have lost a precious jewell out of the Ring of the Church But lost she is not I doe her wrong to say so of her whom God hath found She is not dead but sleepeth And her flesh doth rest in hope that what is sowne in weaknesse shall rise in power according to his mightie working who is able to subdue all things unto himselfe who bringeth downe to the grave and raiseth up by whom death is already swallowed up in victorie and so made an advantage to us Thus passed this precious Saint from sicknesse to perfect health from weaknesse to perfect strength from bondage to perfect freedome from trouble to perfect peace from losse to perfect gaine from heavinesse to perfect joyes In a word she is passed from death to life and from earth to heaven to be for ever in perfect happinesse where wee leave her safe and come to cloze with you Now therefore as the death of Christ doth for us make a gaine of death so may the death of good men and women worke some advantage also for us in that point and so their death may be a gaine to us Therefore Solomon sayes